Document No Longer Maintained/Updated: Content remains hosted for archive purposes but may not be up-to-date.
What Can People With Gout Do To Stay Healthy?
- To help prevent future attacks, take the gout medications that your doctor prescribes. Carefully follow instructions about how much medicine to take and when to take it. Acute gout is best treated when symptoms first occur.
- Tell your doctor about all the medicines, dietary supplements, and vitamins you take. He or she can tell you if any of them increase your risk of hyperuricemia.
- Plan followup visits with your doctor to evaluate your progress.
- Exercise regularly and maintain a healthy body weight. Lose weight if you are overweight, but do not go on diets designed for quick or extreme loss of weight because they increase uric acid levels in the blood.
- What Makes People With Arthritis Overweight?
- 15 Common Myths About Weight Loss, Nutrition And Diet
- How To Start Eating Healthier - 12 Tips For Eating Healthier
Other Measures You Can Take To Stay Healthy
- Maintain a healthy, balanced diet.
- Drink plenty of fluids, especially water. Fluids help remove uric acid from the body.
- Avoid foods that are high in purines.
Purines
Along with specific prescribed medications, it is typically recommended that people with gout reduce their intake of purine-rich foods. Consider though that purines are found in all protein foods and it is not recommended that all purines should be eliminated from a person's diet.
