The symptoms of tophi include chronic joint pain and the visible lump in the joint, while
the pain may be mild and include some inflammation but in many cases, tophi is usually
painless and may cause only stiffness of the joints. On a sidenote, tophi can grow into
the bones as well on top of them!
One thing is for sure, it is very difficult to treat tophi with a simple change in diet but
you can definitely lower your risk of developing tophi by following a low purine diet
avoiding too much meat, seafood, alcohol, sugars and drinking a lot of water, keeping
those uric acid levels on the low end of the spectrum. Tophi’s growth can be stopped
and beginning to dissolve when the uric acid blood levels begin reaching 6mg/dl and
below but the majority of the time when tophi has formed, medical intervention is
required, usually they are surgically removed. There is also the drug Krystexxa which can
shrink the tophi quickly which is a modern uricase treatment, as well as febuxostat (EU
brand name Adenuric, US brand name Uloric).
Prevention is the key to avoiding tophi in your lifetime while suffering from gout. Make
sure to live a healthy lifestyle of a good gout diet, exercise, no smoking and following
your doctor’s recommendations and you will be fine. Tophi is definitely not something
you want to develop later on. Please follow my Gout Diet Plan and stick to it, do not
deviate from the plan!