Unlike most diseases, hyperuricemia, the condition of having too much uric acid in the body, is very hard to predict. The advent of this torturer is obscure and is almost unpredictable. In fact, if you google “hyperuricemia symptoms”, you will find yourself embarking in an exhaustive quest of rigorously searching pages upon pages of sites that does not mention any symptom of hyperuricemia except for gout! Even the Wikipedia entry for hyperuricemia does not cite any symptom.
The reason for this is, without diagnosis, gout is the only recognized omen of this disease.
This article aims to explain a plethora of not well-known hyperuricemia causes.
Gout – The Infamous Sign of Hyperuricemia
As if the gout and hyperuricemia dynamic duo is a package deal, having gout is recognized as a symptom of hyperuricemia, just like hyperuricemia is recognized as a symptom of soon-to-attack-gout. To a major extent, we can recognize this as true. The reason behind this is gout is caused by uric acid ending up in the synovial fluids in the joints and eventually crystallizing.
Needless to say, the more uric acid there is in your body, the bigger the chance of having uric acid finding its way to the joints. Hence, it is most likely that you have hyperuricemia if you have gout.
The Relatively UNKNOWN Hyperuricemia Symptoms
With all the unknown sides of hyperuricemia, it seems like a ghost you can not detect unless it decides to show itself by jumping out at you as gout. Alternatively, you do not have to wait for the gouty volcano to erupt. You can always go to your local doctor to get your uric acid level tested (or undergo a general lab test), but since a sufferer will not suspect the presence of hyperuricemia without gout, the chance of going for a uric acid test is small (unless he decides to undergo a general lab test for some other reason). Hence, it is important to distinguish hyperuricemia symptoms.
For you to understand the symptoms, this article will explain the symptoms along with the underlying principle. With this, you will be able to distinguish symptoms other than the ones that I will mention.
Thick Blood – A Damage Caused By Hyperuricemia
Ironic to its name, hyperuricemia will not make you go hyper. Instead, it will sap your energy and will make you look like a wilting plant, almost devoid of energy. That is none but the beginning. So how does hyperuricemia does this?
Its secret lies on its effect to the blood. Hyperuricemia thickens the blood thus causing a family of interrelated symptoms and effects. This is the first step that will lead to hyperuricemia symptoms.
Since hyperuricemia is the presence of too much uric acid, it also means that the acidity of your blood will increase. This is a perfect condition for the presence of the worst kind of free radicals; Hydrogen atoms. As basic science suggests, acidity is the presence of Hydrogen ions (as opposed to Hydroxide ions of bases).
A free radical will react to other atoms and ions to give its valence electron (unpaired electron) another electron to pair with, leading the free radical to combine with other atoms to create a shared pair. This alters the number of electrons of atoms therefore changing its chemical behavior.
This can change the functions of cells. Worse, if too much Hydrogen atoms “stick” to the walls of your cells, it will cause your blood to coagulate. This is not because the free radicals act as a glue. Hydrogen atoms change the charge of the cell walls. Normally, the cell walls are negatively charged. This is consistent in all of your cells. Since they have same charges, they will repel each other avoiding coagulation. But if there is too much hydrogen, it can alter the charge of a cell wall, causing it to be attracted to other cells. This changes the density of your blood, thickening it and causing it to coagulate and darken.
Such thick blood will lead to a series of hyperuricemia symptoms, all centering on the difficulty of pumping the thickened blood, such as:
- High blood pressure
- Impairment of Intellectual Skills (memory, cognitive, alertness, focus, analysis etc.) because of lack of oxygen
- Palpitation
There are also hyperuricemia symptoms that are related to the free radicals altering the functionality of your cells, such as High Blood Sugar (from the destruction of insulin receptors in the cell wal), which can lead to diabetes type 2.
Take note that all these hyperuricemia symptoms does not appear all at once. They appear interchangeably, and some may not appear at all. In any case, it will be good to undergo a general lab test, as hyperuricemia usually comes along other degenerative diseases such as hypertension, cancer and diabetes.
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