Uric Acid and Back Pain

[GoutPal Arthritis]

Following Joanne’s comment on Uric Acid Back Pain: The Heavy Load Of Gout, that page is now flagged for review.

Joanne says:

Back Pain
Lower back pain feels like a large lump at base of my spine and a lump on top of my spine .. got high levels of uric acid in my blood … had both knees replaced due to osteo atheritis any my doctor says i have gout ..but hands and feet ok .no pain

Have you ever had back pain with high uric acid levels? ❓
Did you get diagnosed with gout, osteoarthritis, or a different form of arthritis? ❓

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7 Ways Gout Causes Back Pain

[Clscmusic]

Gout In Shoulder

I never had an episode of gout before this one. Shoulder. Detected by MRI and my visit to an orthopedic surgeon. The episode was horribly painful. The reversal (cure) has been fairly swift.

My conservative physicians steered away from pharma Rx and instead directed me to exercise through the pain, eats lots of tart dried cherries, drink huge amounts of water. I have applied some NSAID Rx creme to the shoulder and the inflammation reduced.

I’m back to nearly full range of motion and normal amounts of pain (I am a golfer) in one week.

Going to adjust my diet and see my internist for further testing of uric acid matters.

I am 66 years of age.

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How do you see gout in your shoulder?

[Keith Taylor]

I’ve republished this page at 7 Ways Gout Causes Back Pain. Because as part of a bigger picture, the main issue with gout back pain is many people don’t believe it exists.

So gout sufferers become victims as either:
– They don’t believe they have gout, so don’t seek uric acid treatment.
Or
– Their doctor doesn’t believe in spinal gout, so they get the wrong treatment.

Therefore, I’d be very pleased to get comments from gout sufferers who have experienced either of these.

Also, I’ve noticed a few topics about back pain during uric acid treatment. I believe this is part of the issue where flare-ups occur in previously unaffected joints as old uric acid crystals suddenly dissolve. So, I’m now wondering if I should update again to “8 ways gout causes back pain”?

[nobody]

Something I also experienced (and which isn’t specific to gout) is joint pain in the arm/hand climbing up (so to speak) to the shoulders or the upper back.
I guess this might be similar to how you can get back pain from limping badly (or using crutches) because of joint problem in the legs/feet. Or there may be a different nervous/process process (locking muscles as with repetitve stress injury perhaps?) that occurs only with the arms as opposed to the legs. I have no idea how the pain spreads to the next joint but I’m not the only one who experienced it.

[Keith Taylor]

Thanks, nobody

I think there are some general principles:
– With gout, uric acid will definitely affect all joints eventually. That’s been proved with DECT scans and explains nicely why uric acid patients get flares in previously unaffected areas when crystals start dissolving.
– Inflammation generally tends to spread around the body. I’m much less knowledgeable about these processes. So I guess the main issue is what causes inflammation in the first place? Then, how does it spread to other joints?
– The healthy human body is well balanced in terms of symmetry and I guess we’ve evolved to get the most of joints working in harmony. A sports physiotherapist would probably be best to give examples of this. So, when a weakness affects one joint, others have to work harder to compensate. Eg, gout in the fingers might induce repetitive strain injury in the wrist if you have to change your typing style.

There might be more. But ultimately, each case has to be considered on its own merits.

As I type this, I’m thinking of a 9th possibility, which is much less concrete. Because I’ve noticed that after prolonged periods of gout pain, I seemed to be much more sensitive to pain elsewhere in my body. I’ve not researched this, but it might be that intense pain in one joint makes us unaware of other joints being affected. Then, as pain subsides in one joint, we notice more in another. Of course, this is more likely during uric acid treatment. Because attacks when lowering uric acid tend to affect many joints. Whereas “standard” gout attacks from new crystal deposits rarely affect more than one or two joints.

To bring this slightly back on topic (no pun intended), the spine is central to all other joints. So, this phenomenon of “spreading joint pain” is most likely to result in back pain.

Finally, all of this depends on context. Because, as I just hinted, the behavior of gout pain is completely different at different stages of treatment.

Thanks again for your magnificent contributions to this forum, nobody. You are a true friend to gout sufferers everywhere. Also, a delightful resource for answering the trickiest of questions – nobody knows!

[Author]

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