New to MyHealth?
Manage Your Care From Anywhere.
Access your health information from any device with MyHealth. You can message your clinic, view lab results, schedule an appointment, and pay your bill.
ALREADY HAVE AN ACCESS CODE?
DON'T HAVE AN ACCESS CODE?
NEED MORE DETAILS?
MyHealth for Mobile
Treatment for Gout
How is gout treated?
The goals of treatment for gout are fast pain relief and preventing future gout attacks and long-term problems. These include joint destruction and kidney damage.
Specific treatment depends on whether you are having an acute attack or are trying to manage long-term gout and prevent future attacks.
To treat an acute attack
To stop a gout attack, your doctor will give you medicines. These are usually pills like colchicine, NSAIDs (such as naproxen), or a steroid medicine. Sometimes it's treated with a steroid shot. The sooner you get started on medicines, the sooner your symptoms will start to get better.
To ease the pain during a gout attack, rest the joint that hurts. Taking ibuprofen or another anti-inflammatory medicine can also help you feel better. Using ice on the sore joint may also help.
To manage long-term gout
Gout symptoms can come and go for several years. And they may affect more than one joint.
To manage long-term gout and prevent future attacks, your doctor can prescribe a medicine like a xanthine oxidase inhibitor (such as allopurinol) to reduce uric acid buildup in your blood.
The medicine may also reduce tophi if you have them. Tophi are chalky nodules that form from uric acid crystals. They may first appear as nodules on the hands, elbows, or ears. In rare cases, surgery may be done to remove large tophi that are causing deformity.
While you are starting long-term medicine, your doctor will probably also prescribe colchicine or NSAIDs for the first several months. This helps prevent attacks until the long-term medicine has time to work.
Arthritis and Joint Replacement Service
See a Stanford specialist to learn about your treatment options. Visit our clinic to make an appointment.