Signs of a Gout Attack

Author: Paul Mahon

The uric acid crystals that cause gout will have been building up in your joints for years before they cause your first actual attack of gout. You may not even realize that the aches and pains are not just normal aging pains until you have a full blown gout attack.

If people suffer with one or more of these then they usually find they have gout:-

1.When someone touches your joint (usually your big toe) it will feel warm and very tender to the touch. The toe joint will normally be inflamed and painful.

2. Sometimes the pain can begin during the night and it can become extremely intense so that even the lightest pressure placed upon (including just a sheet covering it) can be intolerable to some people.

3. Many people who suffer from gout find that when an attack occurs the discomfort that they feel comes on very rapidly and may last for a few hours during the night. But then the discomfort that they are feeling will slowly begin to ease once more over the following 2 to 7 days.

4. After your attack of gout has started to subside you may find that the skin around the inflamed joint will feel itchy and it may even begin to peel.

Like any illness, gout affects different people in different ways. Some people will recognize all the symptoms mentioned here while others won\'t recognize any of them, you may only get pain in your elbows for example and none in the big toe joint which we mentioned.

Just because your pain is in your elbow or wrist it doesn\'t mean it isn\'t gout. While gout usually attacks your big toe joint there are many instances of people who have had no trouble at all with their toes but have had immense pain in other joints.

In a large number of cases a person often suffers from gout symptoms following an illness or after undergoing surgery and these attacks although painful are short lived. However for those who suffer from chronic gout the attacks are far less painful and in some cases may be diagnosed incorrectly. In some cases especially in older people the gout can actually be confused as being some form or arthritis instead. In fact a chronic gout sufferer is unlikely to suffer from the symptoms very closely associated with acute gout.

When a person starts to display any of the symptoms we have mentioned here it is vital to get them to see a Dr. Some people will dismiss the pain as a temporary discomfort, however without proper medication it will come back worse the next time.

How do you know if you were suffering from a gout symptom or just normal day to day aches? When your big toe ache we don\'t normally think of gout as a possible cause.