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Information On Rheumatoid Arthritis - 3 Tips To Help Every New Sufferer

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Being diagnosed with any incurable disease is shocking, and rheumatoid arthritis is no different. If you have just received your diagnosis then you need to take time to process the situation and work out what happens next.

Rheumatoid arthritis is a well documented illness and it is easy to sink in the vast amount of information out there. Here are three simple tips which I hope will help you to find your starting point.

1. Every patient is different. There are no two people in the world the same. The same it true for patients - there are no two patients who will respond exactly the same way. However tempting it may be you must try not to compare your treatment or progress against others.

2. How to manage your pain. Pain management is an important aspect of any illness. Why do you need to manage pain? Pain can affect all sorts of areas of our lives. Although you may be able to live with a pain it does not mean that you should. Firstly, why should any one live in pain if it is not necessary? Secondly, there are side affects to living with pain - a patient may become irrational or emotional. This can have a devastating affect of areas of your personal life.

3. Dealing with physical change. It is inevitable that your body will go through changes with rheumatoid arthritis, but no one can predict how and when these will happen. Each physical change will need to be reviewed and the consequences understood. Living with rheumatoid arthritis is not about waiting for the next stage - this is the wrong mindset and an important pitfall to avoid.

Quality of life should be your most important consideration. Living with an illness does not mean that you give up living - but you will probably have to make quite a few changes to keep yourself on track.

Taking advice from other people is important, but it is most important to be sure of your actions and believe in what you are doing. If you are unsure of something then it is not likely to be successful.

Remember, there is no better way to stay positive than you make sure that you spend as much time as possible with positive people.

Signs of a Gout attack

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The uric acid crystals that cause gout will have been building up in your joints for years before they cause your first actual attack of gout. You may not even realize that the aches and pains are not just normal aging pains until you have a full blown gout attack.

If you have any of the following symptoms then there is a good chance you have gout:-

1.When someone touches your joint (usually your big toe) it will feel warm and very tender to the touch. The toe joint will normally be inflamed and painful.

2. Sometimes the pain can begin during the night and it can become extremely intense so that even the lightest pressure placed upon (including just a sheet covering it) can be intolerable to some people.

3. Many people who suffer from gout find that when an attack occurs the discomfort that they feel comes on very rapidly and may last for a few hours during the night. But then the discomfort that they are feeling will slowly begin to ease once more over the following 2 to 7 days.

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.

While it is usually your big toe joint that suffers the effects of gout , which of course makes walking very painful, you can also get it in any joint in your body. This includes your fingers, elbows, ankles and even your wrists.

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.

If you or someone you know starts to have any of the symptoms we have mentioned here it is vital that they go to see a DR. While the initial pain may dissipate after a few days it will come back , and may be much worse the next time, unless they take proper medication.

What to Eat if you Suffer from Gout

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People will normally start to conduct research about gout after they have suffered an attack. They suffer a lot of pain in an attack and are looking for ways to stop this from happening. It is not long before the research tells them that the cause of the pain is their diet.

Normally gout sufferers will instantly ask, “so what can I eat then?” and immediately focus on the foods which they enjoy the most. Its only natural to do this, but you need to get over these kind of questions and start to think about your long term health and the effects these favourite foods could be having on you.

The main thing that you think about is how on earth do you stop the pain that gout can cause. There are of course treatments that are able to stop the pain as a short term measure but you really need to think more about how to stop gout problems that may occur in the future. The fact is that gout is unlikely to improve without you taking steps to help yourself.

You need to start thinking about the long term solutions to your gout and the pain you are suffering as a result of it. Yes short term remedies are fine at first, but the real pain is caused by a build up of uric acid crystals in the joints. This can be solved by taking some steps to help in the long term, such as watching your diet and eating the correct foods.

You will not be able to cure your gout by simply altering your diet for a while, instead you need to make changes to your diet which are not just for the present. You need to make changes that will have long term positive effects.

Therefore which changes to your lifestyle should you make at the moment to stop another attack of gout? Firstly try and keep a note of all the things you eat and drink over the next two weeks, this will be much easier to do if you carry some kind of note book around in your pocket. By doing this you will be able to see exactly what you are eating rather than guessing. You will be able to see over these two weeks where you need to cut down on certain foods.

Try to stear clear of foods which contain high levels of purines because this causes the body to create uric acid, if this then crystallizes then gout can be caused. Therefore one of the first things to cut out of your diet are foods that contain this.

Keep the notebook that you have used to keep a record of your food intake for another two weeks and see how many foods containing this you have managed to cut out of your diet. Then move onto another type of food which you need to cut out. Over a period of time you should see a reduction in gout attacks, combine this with increasing your intake of water and you should see good benefits. So are there any foods which actually help with gout problems?

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