When your body has a build up of uric crystals around your joints you will experince pain, that pain is knows as Gout. The reason uric crystals build up is because you are either taking in to many for your your body to handle or you have something wrong with you medically that prevents your body breaking down foods high in purine correctly.

In the normal flow of life your body dissolves the uric acid that you intake via food and drink, your kidneys work to filter uric acids out of your body. Now if you have a kidney disease, have had one removed or maybe have had a kidney transplanted then you may well be suffering with gout as a side effect.

No one ever thinks about their kidneys until they start to malfunction in some way, one of the functions that your kidneys perform is to clean uric acid from your system and send it out of your body in your urine. When your kidneys stop filtering and removing uric acid you are in with a good chance of developing gout.

Hyperuricemia is the word that you need to listen for, if your Dr mentions that then you know you have elevated levels of uric acid in your body and are at an increased risk of gout. No need to panic instantly though as you are not certain to develop gout, you can change your diet and alcohol intake and get the levels of uric acid in your blood back down to safe levels.

If you are reading this and you are a man then there is a good chance that you have or will develop gout, the risk of women developing gout is much lower than men. This may be due to the differences in diet or alcohol intake. Men tend to eat more red meat than women and that is a contributing factor for gout.

Gout attacks have been known to start with sudden severe pain in a single joint. It is characterised by redness, swelling, and hotness in the area where the gout attack occurs. There are a few cases that gout develops in several joints resembling a rheumatoid arthritis like appearance. In most cases, gout attacks are confined to the big toe.

Gout is generally a controllable disease with application of proper treatment and dietry care. No matter how much you love the foods that are high in purines, such as shellfish and game, the pain of a gout attack should be enough to remind you why you have to give them up. Change your diet, get some exercise and reduce your weight and your gout attacks should become few and far between.