What Can You Do if Your Senior Is Prone to Gout?

If your elderly family member is starting to experience bouts of gout, you may already know that the condition can be extremely painful. Gout can flare up literally overnight, even if your senior wasn’t experiencing pain or discomfort in that joint the day before. It’s a tricky condition, and it pays to learn as much as you can about it.

Elder Care Los Angeles CA - What Can You Do if Your Senior Is Prone to Gout?

Elder Care Los Angeles CA – What Can You Do if Your Senior Is Prone to Gout?

Learn What You Can about Gout

Any time your senior is dealing with a new health issue, it’s a good idea to learn as much as you can about it. Gout is one of those conditions that is fairly common, but that not a lot of people talk about. The basics involve uric acid building up in your senior’s body and then collecting in joints. Once in the joints, the uric acid clumps together and forms crystals. Those crystals are the cause of the inflammation and the pain in your senior’s joint.

Follow Her Doctor’s Plan

Your senior’s doctor can run tests on the uric acid levels in your senior’s body. Managing uric acid levels primarily involves making some lifestyle changes. So, that means that you’re going to have a plan from her doctor that may take a little time to implement. There may be other treatments that help with the symptoms your senior is experiencing, too. Keeping up with appointments is going to be very important so that her doctor can keep up with everything that’s happening.

Find a Way to Track What’s Working

Keeping a health log may sound like a lot of work, but it allows you to compile some data about how your senior is feeling and what’s working. There are a lot of things you might want to start tracking at first, ranging from things like pain levels to what your senior is eating and drinking on a daily basis. You’re also going to want to keep track of things like activity levels and whether that’s helping your senior or if she’s experiencing more frequent episodes of gout.

Monitor and Adjust

The key to gout management is always going to involve looking at what’s helping and adjusting when what you’ve tried isn’t working as well. Your senior’s doctor can help with this, but so can noticing what’s helping. Some people are more susceptible to gout than others, no matter how well they’re adhering to their treatment plan.

There may be a lot of changes involved in managing gout for your senior, especially at first. Working with elder care providers can help you and your senior to manage the situation much more efficiently.

If you or an aging loved-one are considering Elder Care Services in Los Angeles CA, please contact the caring staff at Assisting Hearts Home Care today. Proudly Serving the Los Angeles & Ventura County. Call us 24 hours a day, 7 days a week! (805) 371-0033, (818) 593-0094.