After a few years of not looking after your body, eating lots of rich meats and drinking to much beer, there is a good chance that your body will have accumulated enough uric acid crystals for your first experience of gout.
If people suffer with one or more of these then they usually find they have gout:-
1. They will feel some warmth along with extreme tenderness when the infected joint is touched. Normally the joint most commonly affected by this condition is the big toe. But as well as the warmth and tenderness a person will notice the joint has become inflamed and it is also painful. These particular symptoms of gout are more commonly referred to as podagra.
2. Nighttime can often be the first time you notice the intent pain that gout can give you from even the light pressure of a bed sheet.
3.Some gout sufferers will have an attack that comes on quickly and lasts many hours. After the initial pain, which can be very intense, the level drops over the next 2 days to a week.
4. When the gout attack actually begins to subside then the person finds that the skin around the joint, which is affected, may feel itchy and starts to peel.
As well as the symptoms mentioned above there are others that a person may also suffer from if they have a gout attack. But it is important to note however that not everyone who has gout will suffer from these symptoms and the severity of them will vary also.
The most common part of the human body where a person is likely to experience gout is the big toe joint. However, some people may develop gout in other joints in their bodies including their feet, ankles, knees, wrists, fingers as well as their elbows.
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.