Can Eating Cherries Provide Gout Pain Relief?
By Gordon Cameron I’ve never had gout and I hope you haven’t either but I do know that gout is one of the most painful conditions known in medicine. Whats the cause of gout? Our blood contains a salt called uric acid. Uric acid is there all the time in everyones blood but is normally fully dissolved in the way that sugar is fully dissolved in a hot cup of tea. But, if that tea cools down? What happens to the sugar? It comes out of solution as little sharp edged crystals. Well, guess what – that’s exactly what happens in an attack of gout pain. A change in the blood chemistry allows the uric acid to crystallize out of solution and form little jaggy crystals (like bits of broken glass) in the joints. For some reason the first joint of the big toe is the most commonly affected – and the pain from gout when walking is horrific. Quite literally – as many of my patients tell me its like walking over bits of broken glass. These crystals and the change in blood chemistry that makes them appear
