If you are suffering from too much gout pain and contemplating the possibility of curing it by surgery, there are a lot of things to consider before your doctor will agree to this idea. In fact there are four stages to gout disorder, where treatment is applied before surgery is finally recommended.
Four Stages of Gout
Gout usually develops in four stages, hence the severity of the sufferer's condition develops from one stage to the next.
1. The first is the asymptomatic stage where the uric acid level elevates but the person with this condition rarely experiences gout and its pains.
2. The second is the acute stage wherein the person with high levels of uric acid in his body begins to feel joint pains, more intense that what was rarely experienced in the asymptomatic stage. This stage is expected to last for months or years wherein intervals between gout attacks may render the individual with the feeling of being gout-free. In normal cases, the second attack during this stage can be felt as early as the 6th month.
3. In the third stage, the gout disorder during the second stage was left untreated. As a consequence, not only are the joint pains more severe but will also include a condition called bursitis or inflammation of the bursa. The bursa is a sac, which contains the lubricating fluids of the joints.
It is also at this stage when the attacks carried over from the acute gout stage migrates to different joints with severe pains.This time increasing in intensity. Due to the multiple gout pains felt, the sufferer now will experience fever and an almost state of immobility.
4. As multiple pains in the joints persist, notable lumps of uric acids called tophi will appear on the gout sufferer's skin. These are now the onset of joint degeneration, since the areas surrounding the joints are continuously attacked with swelling and tophi pressure. Often it leads to deformity and total immobility.
Other damaging conditions that will threaten the life of the gout sufferer includes hypertension, albuminuria or albumin protein in urine indicative of kidney disease, and urolithiasis, the presence of urinary stones in the urinary tract.
It is during the onset of this last stage that surgery will be recommended to alleviate the gout sufferer from his or her crippling pain. The surgery process involves the removal of tophi, usually the tophus that hampers joint mobility.
Surgery for Tophaceous Gout
In extremely rare cases, there are persons whose physical make-up and body conditions do not respond to any form of medication and treatment. These could probably be attributed to persons who rely only on medications to ease gout pains but continue with their diet and lifestyle. Hence, the formation of tophus in the body leads to tophaceous gout despite medications.
To prevent the person from being crippled or develop joint infections, surgery is now recommended to treat this type of gout. These extreme cases are also subject to certain medical qualifications before surgery is considered. Listed below are such conditions:
1. Surgery for functional purposes, wherein the tophaceous gout no longer permits the gout sufferer to wear any form of footwear or pants.
2. The sufferer is totally immobilized.
3. To drain joint infection that may affect other body parts;
4. To decompress or eliminate the pressure of the tophaceous stones before total damage or deformity of the joint takes place.
Curing gout by surgery is recommended only in extreme cases, like tophaceous gout. For that matter, why opt for surgery if changing your diet and lifestyle is the easiest way to prevent the development of tophaceous gout?
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