Exercise and gout have a double-edged relationship. Gout pain can lead to avoiding exercise but exercise can help in gout treatment.
Like all health conditions that are painful, result in restricted movement and/or joint problems, gout can make sufferers limit their activities, particularly avoiding regular exercise programs.
Reducing activity is the opposite of what gout sufferers should do. For healthy body functioning and just about any health condition, increasing exercise levels and activity is exactly what SHOULD be done.
The benefits of exercise and gout treatment can go hand in hand. It’s not an easy relationship but it can work if you persist.
Exercise has a range of general benefits from maintaining cardiovascular health, improving pre-diabetic conditions, treating depression, improving flexibility and stamina, preserving bone density and boosting the immune system.
As gout is concentrated in the joints there is a tendency for gout suffers to slow down, particularly during goat attacks. So, why exercise if it is painful? It is intuitive that not moving the affected joint and taking the weight off it will lessen the pain level. Yes. This is true in the short term. However, taking the counter-intuitive path and pushing on with exercise, even while experiencing pain, can assist with gout treatment. Over time regular exercise can lower the pain level of gout attacks and, with other measures, even assist in eliminating gout attacks completely.
Exercise will improve circulation in generally but also specifically in the joints. At the same time insulin levels will tend to go towards normal levels which will assist in keeping uric acid levels in check. Maintaining bone density is also a side benefit from regular exercise which can help prevent or slow down joint deterioration from the build-up of uric acid crystal.
The only caution with exercise when suffering from gout is to be careful about the type of exercise. Avoiding exercises that put a strain on the joints affected by gout is wise. Also, while pain should be tolerated to some degree to get the benefit from exercise, if the strong pain persists for over an hour after exercise, the type of exercise should be reviewed. That may mean changing the type of exercise or reducing its intensity. Steady, less intensive activity spread over more time can have just the same long term benefits as intensive short bursts of activity.
Physiotherapists can be of assistance in working out the best exercises and movement to concentrate on so that exercise and gout are not mutually exclusive.