For many gout patients, whether or not to take acid-lowering drugs has always been a pimple wrapped around the heart. If you don’t take medication, blood uric acid can’t be effectively controlled and gout will never get better. If you choose to take medication, you are worried that your liver and kidneys will be damaged due to the side effects of the medication. But what you don’t realize is that for most gout patients, not taking medication may hurt the kidneys even more. Hyperuricemia and Kidney Damage The extent of kidney damage caused by persistent hyperuricemia is far greater than most people realize. 1, the probability of uric acid nephropathy is 15.1% in hyperuricemia patients in China. 2.About 20% of gout patients who do not receive standardized treatment develop various kidney problems, and serious ones even develop uremia. 3. Almost 100% of gout patients have kidney lesions. In the United States, some scholars have dissected the kidney tissues of gout patients, and found that more than 98% of the patients have different degrees of kidney damage. In the gout patients who do not receive standardized treatment, about 2-3% of the patients eventually died of uremia and kidney failure. Although a lot of medical science, repeatedly emphasize hyperuricemia, is a direct factor in uric acid nephropathy. But obviously, more than half of the gout patients, did not realize the significant relationship between hyperuricemia, and kidney disease directly. How does hyperuric acid harm the kidneys Although the kidney lesions caused by hyperuricemia include both direct and indirect damages, which is complicated to describe in detail. However, it is not difficult to explain why high uric acid is so closely related to kidney damage. Kidney is the most important channel for uric acid transportation, so naturally it is also the body organ with the largest amount of uric acid deposition and the first to start affecting. Clinically, some patients with uric acid kidney damage appear earlier than gouty arthritis for this reason. Fortunately, gouty nephropathy develops very slowly, and it often takes 10-20 years for significant renal decompensation and disease to occur. As long as the problem is treated in a timely manner before it becomes serious, most patients can have a good outcome. However, precisely because the lesions are slow and small, most gout patients do not have obvious feeling in the early stage of renal lesions, including whether there is any abnormality in the relevant examination. This has resulted in a large number of patients being under-diagnosed and unaware of the disease. How to save your kidneys? If you do not have any obvious kidney disease and function loss for the time being, then I would like to congratulate you. Because at this stage, you are protecting your kidneys while standardizing your gout treatment. And on the question of how to treat gout, I have long written to hand numbness, we all read the eyes calloused. Here is a brief mention, there are friends who do not understand can comment message. In principle, there are two key points in the treatment of uric acid nephropathy, one is to alkalize the urine, and the other is to reduce uric acid. The following points are what you must do well: 1, low purine diet (eat less heart, liver, kidney and other animal offal, and alcohol, etc.). 2.Large amount of water: keep the urine volume >2000ml/day. 3.Alkalize urine: take sodium bicarbonate or other alkalizing drugs; eat more vegetables on weekdays, which can also play a role in helping alkalize urine. 4, avoid using drugs that inhibit uric acid excretion such as tachycardia or thiazide diuretics. 5.Apply blood uric acid lowering drugs, and strive to keep the uric acid within the standard line of 360μmol/L for a long time. As for patients with the following two conditions, more help is needed 1, those with kidney stones and fluid retention should ask for surgical assistance. 2.Patients with acute renal failure and end-stage renal failure are treated with dialysis. Here is another special reminder: many people are prone to ignore the liver and kidney toxicity of Chinese herbs and proprietary Chinese medicines. When taking chemical drugs, people will be relatively careful. However, usually, the dosage recommended by the doctor is within the safe range, and the benefits far outweigh the harms. Don’t let the fear of side effects make you neglect the treatment of the original disease instead. In order to control a chronic disease, you still have to take the right amount of medication. On the contrary, those unknown herbal remedies and various acid-reducing drugs that emphasize “liver and kidney protection” are the most important things to be careful of. Always remember, medicine is three times poisonous, and this is the same for both Chinese and Western medicines.