Dangerous Complications of Gout

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The subjects most often affected by gout are adults, especially those aged 40 and above. The disease causes many dangerous complications, the most serious being disability.

1. What Causes Gout?

The cause of Gout is due to a genetic malfunction, currently, science has identified 5 genes related to gout. It is more common in men than in women, because faulty genes are more common in men.
In Gout, due to abnormal changes in the body's reactions leading to more uric acid being produced or due to inadequate urinary excretion causing stagnation. When uric acid in the blood increases, they combine and form clear masses called urate crystals and are deposited in the synovial membrane of the joints, causing inflammation and joint pain.

However, high uric acid syndrome and gout, although closely related, are two issues that need to be distinguished. Uric acid is a waste product formed by the natural destruction of purines in the body. People who have a habit of eating a lot of protein, seafood or animal organs or drinking a lot of beer and alcohol will not only increase the content of purines, but also be a source of unfinished metabolism that creates a multitude of free radicals, translocated in the blood and readily binds to any potentially mutated gene.
On the other hand, gout is common in patients with other medical history such as obesity, family history, kidney disease, high blood pressure, metabolic syndrome and use of certain medications. In addition, uric acid can also be deposited in other organs such as kidneys, subcutaneous tissues, causing kidney stones and the formation of tophi.

2. Symptoms of Gout

The accumulation of urate salt crystals in the joints is the cause of inflammation, swelling as well as pain for patients. The accumulation of many urate crystals in the joints causes the joints to swell, in addition, the increase in uric acid in the blood will deposit urate in the kidneys causing kidney stones.
There are two types of Gout disease - acute and chronic:
When acute Gout occurs, the patient often presents with intense, burning joint pain. These symptoms often appear around midnight or early morning, especially after high protein meals, beer and wine. In painful joints, there is obvious inflammation (swelling, heat, redness, pain). The characteristic in arthritis of gout is that the most common painful joints are ankle joints, toe joints, knee joints and especially big toe joints (in women often pain in finger joints). In acute gout, uric acid in the blood is often elevated. For people with chronic gout will often have pain in some joints, but not often, but the pain recurs many times. Every time a pain occurs, sometimes without any treatment, it will go away on its own, that's why elderly people with gout are easily misdiagnosed with degenerative joint disease or rheumatoid arthritis because the symptoms are quite similar.

3. Common Complications of Gout

There are many people who worry about the complications of Gout, because when the pain of the disease, the patient will have to be extremely miserable to cope, while still having to abstain from all kinds of things. The nature of tophi particles is urate crystals, capable of deforming joints, thus gradually limiting joint mobility, making it difficult to walk, and worse, causing disability. In case, broken tophi particles will allow bacteria to enter the joint causing septic arthritis, very dangerous bacteremia.
Chronic gout can cause urate salt deposition in the kidneys, causing kidney stones, therefore, can increase the risk of kidney water retention, pus stasis leading to kidney failure, high blood pressure. There are cases where urate is deposited under the skin, causing painful and unsightly lumps and lumps.
In addition, complications of Gout can occur due to the use of drugs to treat, typically causing allergies, especially allopurinol or side effects of corticosteroids or non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs that damage the digestive system , blood, kidney...
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