Onset of gout attack
You have nothing in the beginning. Every joint in your knees, wrists, toes, and ankle is devoid of any pain and inflammation. Then there is emergence of the uric acid, a by-product of purine breakdown. Due to its low solubility in humans, it gets deposited and can easily crystallize in the synovial joints, especially at low temperatures.
Your autoimmune responses such as the pain and inflammation get triggered due to crystallized uric acid. This forms the basis of a gout attack. It can last from a few hours to a few months. You may be unable to walk because of the unending inflammation and stuck in bed or on a wheel chair.
Does gout go away on its own after some time? Can you permanently cure gout?
Now, there are two scenarios. Gout attacks subside completely on its own after sometime even without any treatment with gradual improvement. If you do nothing about it, for the time being, it will lay dormant and will relapse again when there is any slight disturbance in uric acid level.
But to say vanishing of gout on its own is wrong. It’s a lifetime medical condition which needs proper treatment just to control the frequency of attack and appearance of any flare. To say gout attacks can go by itself has a clinical meaning and it is true in its sense but to say that gout can go on its own has no clinical significance. You can have gout even if you don’t experience any gout attacks.
More: Gout Causes, Symptoms, Diagnosis, Prevention, Treatment
More: What Does Gout Look Like How Do You Know You Have Gout
Outcome on lack of treatment: What will happen if gout is left untreated?
Let’s assume you decided to do nothing about it. You didn’t take any medication for inflammation and pain and the gout attack subsided on its own completely. By doing so, you are paving the way for the comeback of gout again. How? It may be in a dormant phase, but it can be provoked by sudden disturbances in the uric acid levels which increases the chance of the growth of uric acid crystals.
If you are consuming beer with gout, it is like the end of world for you. Beer has high concentration of purine and it can cause sudden increases in uric acid levels. This increased uric acid finds its way to the synovial fluids of the synovial joints. This increases the probability of random uric acid molecules “combining” with the uric acid crystal. This will trigger other serious auto-immune attacks awakening the gout.
Usually, gout is manifested again and again after brief pauses. The time taken by it may range from a few weeks to years to repeat itself again. You can compare it like a ticking bomb waiting for your single wrong move. However, even if you do not consume foods high in purine, uric acid can still come back by itself.
The prime reason for this is the evident fact that the uric acid crystal is still in there! Pain and inflammation may have eased off, but it does not necessarily mean that the crystal magically vanished. On the contrary, the chances of crystals growing larger in size are more than vanishing.
Gout will be immortally live as long as the uric acid crystal is in there.
