Gout College Essay

As I began my sophomore year of high school, I envisioned another year full of sports and normal high school activities. I was looking forward to playing basketball as I had done in my freshman year. A few weeks into the new school year I slowly realized that vision would not play out how I thought it would. When I began to notice a nagging pain in my hands and fingers that would not go away, I knew something was wrong. Basketball, a sport that I had once loved to play became almost impossible for my swollen hands to handle. The pain progressively got worse and eventually spread throughout my body, making it difficult to walk and carry out simple tasks. After two long months of tests and several doctors, I was finally diagnosed with Rheumatoid Arthritis.

As we grow older our bodies begin to degenerate, and stop working. There are many different kinds of diseases that we are subject to as we age, cancers, heart disease, Alzheimer’s disease, arthritis, and many others. All have a negative affect on our lives, making it difficult to function. Arthritis is the second leading chronic disease in the United States.

What is pain? If you ask someone to tell you the definition of pain they will typically state something that hurts. Registered nurses should know the definition of pain and how it can be identified on their patients. However, Abdalrahim, Majali, Stomberg, and Bergbom (2010) propose that nurses did not receive adequate education in pain management and suggest the lack of knowledge hinders their ability to adequate control their patients’ pain. Therefore, the unethical treatment of pain can be traced back nurses.

A progress note from Dr. Chweyah, dated 06/26/2017, indicated that the claimant presented for follow-up of gout, muscle weakness, and weight loss. He had ongoing weakness of the legs with knee pain. He stated that her weight drop had stopped. His current weight was 210 pounds. Objective findings showed a pulse rate of 105 with a blood pressure of 92/60. His BMI was 28.56. He was diagnosed with an acute pain in both knees, muscle weakness in the legs, chronic gout, and weight loss. A referral to neurology and medications were recommended.

12/24/15 Progress Report describes that the patient has right knee pain. The pain is frequent. It is aching and burning in quality. The current pain level is 0/10 and worst pain is 4/10. Bending, squatting, walking, weight bearing, changing clothes and ROM aggravate the pain. Rest, ice,

Osteoarthritis and gout are both a chronic disease. There is no cure, but symptoms can be treated. When taking an x-ray, it important to take a medical history from the patient. It can be helpful in treatment of the patient. X-rays can show damage and other changes related to osteoarthritis to confirm the diagnosis. Doctor or physician most probably looking for areas that are tender, painful or swollen as well as any signs of joint damage. The treatment of osteoarthritis and gout include maintaining a healthy weight, a physical activity daily, and taking a medications. There are techniques to improve flexibility, stiffness and pain by slowly and gently stretching of joints without hurting a patient. Chronic gout can be treated with over-the-counter drugs. There are several medications are available to reduce uric acid levels. Drinking plenty of water or other fluids helps to remove toxic substance such as uric acid from the system and reduce further

The patient is a 66-year -old retired black male. The purpose of the visit was to determine medication compliance, evaluate functional and mental status and perform a complete physical evaluation. His chief complaint is left knee and foot and calf soreness and ankle swelling without any injury for approximately seven days. He states that he has pain in his left knee, soreness to his calf increases with swelling and redness to his left ankle but no temperature changes to his left leg or foot. He states that his calf pain increases with dorsiflexion of his left foot. He describes the pain in his knee as pressure and rates the pain as 4/10. The pain does not radiate to anywhere other than his calf and knee.

The objective for the study by (Zhang et al. 2012) was to research the connection between the intake of cherries and the risk of recurrent gout attacks in patients with gout.

Gout is a common form of arthritis that is caused by the formation of crystals of uric acid in a joint. An acute gout attack usually consists of the rapid onset of pain in the affected joint. Gout can affect the quality of life of the individual during an acute attack as well as the long-term effects it causes. Gouty arthritis is increasing in its popularity. The outlook for gout is good if diagnosed and treated within the early stages of the disease progression. Although it is non-life threatening, gout can cause severe pain, and it has been known to be linked to depression.

The problems that are identified in 56-year-old Jonathon are painful, swollen, erythematous of the knee with periarticular involvement, high blood pressure of 191/112, high cholesterol of 300 mg/dl, and obesity. The differential diagnoses for Jonathon are osteoarthritis, acute monoarthritis, and Gout. I believe that Jonathan’s primary diagnosis is osteoarthritis. Osteoarthritis is a degenerative joint disease that affects cartilage between bones, which may restrict movement and leads to pain, stiffness, swelling, and inflammation (Thakur, Mande, & Mitra (2014). According to Kullich, Overbeck, & Spiegel (20130, osteoarthritis is associated with pain with weight bearing, but it can be experienced during rest as the disease become more advanced. Being that Jonathan is a retired mechanic, his knee problem could have stemmed from his previous occupation and his knee possibly developed normal wear and tear due to frequent required bending from his last job. Jonathan weighs 310 lbs, his problem could have

Annie, aged forty four years who has arrived to the emergency department because of extreme and increasing pain in her right big toe for the last couple of days. Her vital signs were : T38, P100, R20 and BP 140/90. During the examination, her toe looks red and swollen, she could not sleep for couple of days due to excruciating pain. Her liver function test did not show any defects whereas serum electrolytes test indicates higher uric acid levels. Her medical diagnosis is gout. Gout is a kind of arthritis. Which can cause an attack of sudden burning pain, stiffness, and swelling in a joint, usually a big toe (Neogi, 2011). She is given Allopurinol, 600mg daily and Ibuprofen, 200-400mg, 4/24. Medical Officer decided to admit her for observation and more examination. The aim of care is to relief pain and inflammation and also prevent from gout attacks leading to stable joint harm. Her female partner is away for work in the mines. Also, due to unavailability of her grandparents, she is worried about her three year old son as there is no one

Recurrent severe attacks of gout and the development of tophi can cause permanent damage to the joints.  Joint replacement surgery may be required to restore joint function.  *

There are several stages in gout, involving the asymptomatic hyperuricemia, acute gout or a gout attack, interval gout, and lastly the chronic gout. The first stage of the gout is asymptomatic hyperuricemia which indicates that the period before the first gout attack. There no obvious symptoms but the high blood uric acid levels and crystals are forming in the joints. The second first stage of the gout is acute gout or a gout attack, which happens when something causes the uric acid levels to spike the crystals that have formed in a joint and thus triggering the attack. Acute gout are normally occur suddenly and strike at night. This will thus result in a severely red, hot and swollen joint with agonizing pain. The third stages of the gout

Laminitis is also known as Founder. The composition of a horse’s foot has two tissue layers. Sensitive laminae have to do with pedal bone tissue attached to it. Insensitive laminae have to do with the hoof’s hard exterior tissue layers. In order to get laminitis, there has to be inflammation of the laminae. There are two types of laminitis, one is acute and the other is chronic. Acute is when there is a lack of circulation to the laminae. This causes both laminae to fuse together causing pain and breakdown of tissue layers. Blood may seep from the hoof with severe laminitis. The pedal bone can rotate within three days from the onset of the disease and the foot’s sole will develop a hole when there is unsuccessful treatment of laminitis. When treatment is unsuccessful, other infections can develop. Acute can turn into chronic due to the disease occurring often. Chronic will change the shape of the hoof and the hoof will have unnormal growth, and porous bone development. Equine who are in poor condition and overweight have a greater risk of developing this disease. This disease can attack four hooves, just the front or just the back hooves.

Gout is a global disease and is increasing in prevalence world. This extremely painful, inflammatory arthritis appears to be getting more and more common. There seems to be a worldwide trend towards gout patients getting younger, often occurring at the age of 30 and above.