When you go to the doctor and get treatment for your gout symptoms, they will normally prescribe you the usual medications. These usual medications will be to relieve your gout pain, reduce the inflammation and swelling, and reduce the uric acid levels in the blood. This is to prevent further occurrence of acute gout attacks.

Basically, there are 4 categories of gout medication. They are most commonly used in combination with each other to boost their effects on gout treatment.

The 4 categories of drugs are:

NSAIDS
Colchicines
Corticosteroids
Allopurinol

Non-Steroidal Anti-Inflammatory Drugs (NSAIDs) are well-known painkillers for gout. These classes of painkiller drugs can be very effective in handling the pain that nasty gout pain. But they can come with some very undesirable side effects. It will induce bleeding in the stomach linings and cause stomach ulcers. If you are using this medication for long term, better check back with your doctor frequently just to be safe.

Colchicine helps reduce the swelling and get rid of the pain. They are frequently used to prevent recurrences of gout attacks as well. But colchicines cannot be used in patients with serious kidney conditions because the toxic accumulation of colchicine in the body can be fatal.

Corticosteroids works swiftly in eliminating all swelling and inflammation. It's one of the best anti-inflammatory drugs available in the market. Examples of corticosteroids are: Prednisolone, betamethasone and dexamethasone. They are very powerful drugs in combating gout attacks and are very valuable for gout treatment. However, these steroids tend to suppress the immune systems. Gout sufferers who take this medicine for long term will be at a greater risk of contracting other common diseases.

Allopurinol is a xanthine oxidase inhibitor. This drug mainly used in prevention of gout attack and also reducing uric acid in the body. It works by inhibiting xanthine oxidase, the enzyme responsible for the conversion of hypoxanthine to xanthine to uric acid. Allopurinol also acts on purine catabolism, reducing the production of uric acid without disrupting the biosynthesis of vital purines in the body. When you first start using this drug, it works very well in lowering your blood uric acid levels. It is also very effective in preventing future gout attacks. That is why doctors worldwide prescribe this drug as the first line therapy for all gout attack sufferers. Your doctors will also advice you against taking any alcohol during all the above gout treatments as they will interfere and reduce the effectiveness of all the drugs used for gout treatment.

There you have it, the general gout treatment for all gout sufferers. As you can tell, all these drugs come with their own pros and cons; so it is not all good without its downsides. That is why a lot of gout patients look for alternative to the usual drug therapy.

You can read more about gout treatments at Best Gout Cure. For one of the best alternative gout therapy, it can be found at Best Gout Cure. Find out and get to know the real cure for gout, once and for all.