August 2020
Make Your Patients' Gout Flares "Disappear!"
Greetings!

The Gout Education Society is committed to raising public awareness of gout. The Society arms healthcare professionals, like you, with resources to share with patients and staff—and provides access to the most up-to-date research and information about gout and treatment options.

After you've diagnosed a patient with gouty arthritis, or confirmed their gout diagnosis, it's important to remind your patient that gout is a lifelong arthritic disease, but it can be managed—typically by making some dietary/lifestyle changes and by adhering to a daily medication.

After a diagnosis of gout has been made, you will likely be prescribing a urate-lowering medication to get levels to 6.0 mg/dL or below, depending on symptoms. Tell you patients that taking their medication as prescribed is critical—and they should not stop taking it abruptly, even if they are not experiencing flares.

It can be helpful to explain that the daily urate-lowering medication will help treat the underlying cause of gout: high urate acid levels. Our latest Medical Professional Guide can help you identify which medications may be best for your patient. It may take some time to find the right treatment or combination of treatments for your patients. Patients will likely need to stay on their urate-lowering medications for life, but they can hopefully experience fewer (or even no) flares over time. Be sure to remind patient to get their uric acid levels checked every six months so you can keep track of their levels and make sure they are at 6.0 mg/dL or below, depending on symptoms.

Visit GoutEducation.org to download our resources and educational gout cartoons.
We Need Your Feedback!
The University of Alabama at Birmingham is in the process of planning a patient-centered, internet-based trial that will evaluate the effectiveness of supplemental cherry extract for gout management. Before this, we'll need your help in answering a brief, three-question survey.

Gout is one of the most common forms of inflammatory arthritis and a major public health problem. Despite the efficacy of urate-lowering therapy (ULT), effectiveness is low, since many of patients with gout have poor adherence to ULT therapy, in part due to concerns about medication side effects, cost and the intermittent nature of gout symptoms. For these reasons, as well as an increasing preference among many patients for non-pharmacological treatments, there is a need to critically evaluate non-pharmacological treatments (e.g., dietary cherry supplements) for gout.
 
Below is a link to a survey that will help us understand enthusiasm among rheumatologists about this question. Thank you in advance for your thoughts and feedback.
Download Now! Featured Educational Material:
FAQs & Answers About Gout Fact Sheet
Our print material fulfillment is on hold, but you can still download the "Frequently Asked Questions & Answers About Gout" fact sheet, or any of our other resources, for free. If you don't mind waiting until we can ship copies to your office in the United States for free, let us know what you need!
Help Patients Find Better Gout Treatment Faster!
If you haven't already, we encourage you to sign up for the Gout Specialists Network (GSN)! The GSN aims to provide gout patients with faster and better access to care from experts, like you. 
 
Joining the Gout Specialists Network is simple:

  1. To sign up, visit GoutSpecialistsNetwork.org. Joining is free of charge.
  2. After you register, update your profile page with information about you, your practice and more.
  3. Enjoy ongoing access to the latest gout information, research and continuing education.

As a member, you can choose to make your practice and professional information available to patients through a medical professional locator—helping those with gout find qualified medical professionals in their area.
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