Many gout sufferers think that treating gout means stopping the pain. It is true that painkillers work very well when you first have gout, and the joint pain may only flare up once every few years. Even if you have an attack, you can just take some painkillers and you’ll be fine. In between attacks, you forget about the pain and continue your unhealthy lifestyle. After a few attacks, you will find that the painkillers that were effective at the beginning slowly lose their miraculous effect, and the most depressing thing is that the pain attacks become more and more frequent, from once every few years to several times a year, or even several times a month; furthermore, more and more joints are attacked. Why does gout always recur? Why does gout always recur? Gout treatment is not painful anymore, but it is only the first step of gout treatment. What’s more troubling is that gout doesn’t really stop hurting your health when it’s not attacking! Instead, it quietly hurts the kidneys while quietly preparing for the next attack on the joints. Therefore, the most important goal of gout treatment is to lower the level of uric acid in the blood, not just to stop the pain. 1. Diet and lifestyle: are the absolute foundation of gout treatment. Any expectation that uric acid will come down without diet control and lifestyle improvement is a very unrealistic idea. This part mainly includes: control diet, moderate exercise to reduce weight; avoid drinking alcohol (including beer, white wine, red wine, anything containing alcohol will promote the onset of gout); avoid high purine food intake (offal); avoid sugary drinks; limit red meat consumption (beef, lamb, pork); limit seafood consumption; limit excessive salt intake; encourage the use of vegetables and low-fat dairy products. However, strict dietary control can only reduce uric acid by 20%. 2. Drink more water and alkalize urine: Adjusting urine PH to 6.2-6.9 in patients with hyperuricemia is conducive to the dissolution of urate crystals and their discharge from urine, reducing the formation of uric acid stones. Sodium bicarbonate can be used to adjust urine pH, usually 0.5-1g each time, 3 times a day. 3.Actively treat chronic diseases related to gout: hypertension, diabetes, atherosclerosis, metabolic syndrome and heart failure and other diseases can cause renal arteriosclerosis and decrease in glomerular filtration rate, resulting in reduced renal uric acid secretion function and impaired uric acid excretion and causing hyperuricemia; therefore, these diseases should be actively treated to increase uric acid excretion. 4.Rational application of uric acid-lowering drugs: Some patients need to use uric acid-lowering drugs under the guidance of doctors. There are only three kinds of uric acid-lowering drugs used in China: the first one is allopurinol, which is the most commonly used drug to lower uric acid, and its efficacy is exact, and the main mechanism is to reduce the production of uric acid, but because this drug can have serious complications in some gout patients. Therefore, it is important to follow the advice of a specialist if this drug is to be used. The second drug is benzbromarone, which is also an effective drug and relatively simple to use. The main mechanism is to promote uric acid excretion from the kidneys, and it needs to be used under medical supervision when kidney function is abnormal. The third drug is Febuxostat, which is a relatively new uric acid-lowering drug with definite uric acid-lowering efficacy, and the current evidence shows that the uric acid-lowering efficacy is better than allopurinol, but it is tens of times more expensive than allopurinol. Therefore, it should only be considered under the care of a physician for patients who are truly unable to use allopurinol. For the majority of patients, gout can be controlled with regular treatment. However, if it is not always cured, it is important to consider whether you are changing your unhealthy lifestyle and taking your medication as required by your doctor. Gout can be cured, the key is the combination of prevention and treatment, standardized long-term. So we have to have confidence and patience, and we will definitely beat hyperuricemia and gout!