How can gout complications be prevented?
For the long-term treatment of gout, it is important to change your diet, reduce your weight and do regular exercise. This will keep your uric acid levels low and help to prevent further gout attacks.
Another component of this preventative healthcare is uric acid-lowering drug therapy, which your physician can prescribe. This consists of medications that reduce uric acid production or improve uric acid removal.
Once uric acid crystals have been eliminated,
disappearance of symptoms is often observed, and gout is effectively controlled.
Lowering your uric acid level
Uric acid levels in the blood must be lowered to the minimum target level of 6 mg/dl (360 mmol/l) in order to improve gout symptoms, although 5 mg/dl (300 mmol/l) is often recommended for patients suffering from severe gout. In order to prevent the disease from re-occurring, it is important that uric acid-lowering therapy and monitoring of levels continue even after the target value is reached. This requires accurate and regular blood tests. Lifelong uric acid-lowering therapy is recommended in cases where there are ongoing signs or symptoms (e.g. one or more tophi [lumps of uric acid that form around the joints] on examination).
