How much uric acid does your body contain?
At 6.8 mg/dL, the threshold for crystallization, how much uric acid does your blood really contain if you have 1 gallon - approximately 4 liters - of blood?
One deciliter is one tenth of a liter, so you have 68 mg per liter, or 272 mg of uric acid in your body. That is approximately one hundredth of an ounce. Since your big toe weighs about 33 grams, you would not think less than one thousand of the weight would cause any problems. But things are not that simple.
One deciliter is one tenth of a liter, so you have 68 mg per liter, or 272 mg of uric acid in your body. That is approximately one hundredth of an ounce. Since your big toe weighs about 33 grams, you would not think less than one thousand of the weight would cause any problems. But things are not that simple.
THE BIG TOE CRYSTALS
The problem is not in the uric acid, it is in the big toe. Or rather, any joint with gout. And the issue is where the crystals settle.
When you have gout, your blood circulation is lower in your toes than in the rest of the body. It does not mean that you are about to have a heart failure, but you are certainly at risk, since for some reason - maybe your weight, I know mine is an issue - your heart has to work harder to get the blood everywhere it has to go. That means the toes are underserved, temperature falls, and crystals start to form. That triggers an inflammation which triggers a gout attack.
When you have gout, your blood circulation is lower in your toes than in the rest of the body. It does not mean that you are about to have a heart failure, but you are certainly at risk, since for some reason - maybe your weight, I know mine is an issue - your heart has to work harder to get the blood everywhere it has to go. That means the toes are underserved, temperature falls, and crystals start to form. That triggers an inflammation which triggers a gout attack.
REMAINING URIC ACID
When uric acid crystals start to form, not all of the uric acid will crystallize at once. It is usually just a small part of the uric acid in the body which crystallizes.
However, if the crystals settle into tophi, the cyst-like blisters that contain uric acid crystals, they can remain there as your body builds up more and more uric acid. In that case, it becomes very hard to get rid of as well.
For most people, a gout attack is over in a day or two. If you have a lot of residual uric acid in your body, it can take days or even weeks until the crystals have dissolved sufficiently for the inflammation to disappear.
However, if the crystals settle into tophi, the cyst-like blisters that contain uric acid crystals, they can remain there as your body builds up more and more uric acid. In that case, it becomes very hard to get rid of as well.
For most people, a gout attack is over in a day or two. If you have a lot of residual uric acid in your body, it can take days or even weeks until the crystals have dissolved sufficiently for the inflammation to disappear.
CONTROL YOUR LEVEL
This is why it makes sense to invest in a uric acid meter. You will have a continous idea about your uric acid level. But it is not something which you use to check your readings every hour. You use it to check that you are on the right trend - and whether you need to tighten your diet. When you have a gout attack, or when the level of uric acid is high, you want to cut all external purine sources (purine is a precursor to uric acid, in turn made from the building blocks of DNA when your cells are destroyed). Even if purine that comes through the diet is only 25 to 30 percent, you do not want it to turn to uric acid in your body when you are trying to lower the UA level.
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