Uric Acid Crystals

[John Jones]

Hi, I understand that when I have a flare up the pain is caused by crystal formations. I have always wondered when my flare up goes away is that because the crystals dissolved? If they haven’t dissolved why does the pain go away?
Thanks

[nobody]

Hi,

Most of the pain specific to a gout flareup is directly or indirectly attributable to an autoimmune process which we might also call inflammation.
This may be triggered by crystal formation but I would instead expect the typical flareup to trigger crystal formation rather than the other way around. Note that a flareup might not have anything to do with crystal formation, for instance when it takes place during the early phase of an effective UA-lowering treatment.
In any case crystal formation as such isn’t painful and people who have UA crystals typically do not experience pain at any given time.

The reason why the immune system seems to suddenly decide to make a painful fuss about crystals which had been laying around for a while are as mysterious to me as the reason it stops doing so. But note that this isn’t peculiar to gout but a feature of many autoimmune diseases (or even sometimes of allergies or harmful overreations to an infection).
That said, if the crystals were entierly dissolved the flareup would naturally stop but I don’t think that is how a flareup typically concludes. I expect the immune system has ways both to bury (so to speak) the crystals as well as to down-regulate autonomously.

[John Jones]

Thank you very much for your thoughtful reply.

[John Jones]

Thank you so much for your thoughtful reply.

[Author]

Posts