Category Archives: Awareness

Wipe Out Gout

Arthritis Foundation Launches Wipe Out Gout – Awareness Campaign

It may come as a surprise that gout is the most common cause of inflammatory arthritis among adults in the United States.1 It’s also very painful, but gout can be a management disease – meaning there are several things people with gout can do to reduce flares, or eliminate flares all together.
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Gout Patient Story

“Honey, I Have Gout”: A Spouse Reflects on Her Worries

At times, life can be difficult for those living with gout, but it can be just as hard on spouses. When you live in close quarters with a significant other, you undoubtedly feel the pain they deal with on a daily basis. Mira knows this firsthand.

Early on in their marriage, Mira’s husband returned from a business trip with a painful toe and they couldn’t figure out the cause. “For someone who was athletic and never had any health problems, it was inexplicable,” says Mira. “That first attack lasted about a week, and we were young, so he didn’t go see a doctor.”
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New Gout Resource from Arthritis Foundation

Let’s Speak Gout: Addressing A Treatable, Yet Often Untreated Condition

Did you know that Gout Awareness Day is held on May 22? In support of Gout Awareness Day today, we’ve launched a new tool to help those that suffer from the disease. Of the nearly 8.3 million adults living with gout, more than half experience multiple gout attacks each year. But having fewer or no gout attacks is possible. The Arthritis Foundation’s Let’s Speak Gout patient tool is now available to empower you to better manage your disease.
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Gout Misinformation Shaming

Gout Is No Joke: Misinformation & Shaming May Prevent People from Getting Appropriate Care

 

“Gout is so 18th century. It’s like, why don’t I get scarlet fever and syphilis as well, while I’m about it?”  – Columnist and restaurant critic Giles Coren, The Times, September 13, 2014

That’s just one of hundreds of gout jokes, cartoons and snide jabs that have been spied in the media in the last few years — and that doesn’t take into account a rich tradition of gout lampoonery dating back at least to the 18th century (Google “James Gillray”). Then or now, it’s hard to imagine another disease that gets so little respect. And that’s a problem, according to New Zealand researchers. They say the press perpetuates myths about gout that downplay its seriousness and prevent sufferers from getting treatment.
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Today is Gout Awareness Day!

National Gout Awareness Day is recognized annually on May 22 to help raise awareness around gout, a painful disease that affects approximately 8.3 million Americans.

Gout is a form of inflammatory arthritis that develops as a result of excess levels of uric acid in the blood, which results in a condition called hyperuricemia.. The uric acid can form needle-like crystals in a joint and cause sudden, severe episodes of pain, tenderness, redness, warmth and swelling.

Although gout appears to manifest itself suddenly as an acutely red, hot and swollen joint (often the big toe) with excruciating pain, it’s actually the result of a process that’s been occurring in the body for quite some time. The disease may be chronic for some patients, and for others it may remit for long periods of time, followed by flares for days to weeks.

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