For example, people with hyperuricemia may be more likely to have cardiovascular disease, high blood pressure, kidney disease, and diabetes. If you have elevated uric acid levels, your clinician may need other tests to assess what is going on and see what might be causing your elevated uric acid. For example, depending on your symptoms and your other medical problems, you might need some of the following:. The results of these tests, in combination with the rest of your clinical picture, will help determine what treatment you might need.
Depending on your overall medical profile, you may or may not need treatment and follow-up monitoring after your uric acid test. If you do have treatment for high uric acid levels, you may need follow-up tests to see if your levels respond. If needed, your provider can tweak your dose or change to another medication.
However, many people with hyperuricemia do not need treatment. An exception to this might be someone who has hyperuricemia due to cancer treatment. If you have hyperuricemia and gout, you may need to take to a type of medication known as urate-lowering therapy.
These medications, such as allopurinol, help decrease the amount of uric acid in your blood. This, in turn, reduces the chances of having gout attacks in the future.
For example, you might need to target this level if you have two or more attacks of gout per year, or if you have chronic kidney disease. But you might need to target a lower number if your condition is more severe. In recent years, guidelines have encouraged clinicians to more tightly monitor the uric acid levels of their patients.
One challenge is that you may need to gradually increase your dose over time. It will also require some repeated blood tests to make sure you are taking the right dose for you. But if you work closely with your healthcare provider to get your dose just right, you may be able to decrease the likelihood of future attacks. Not everyone with kidney stones has problems with high uric acid.
But people with certain types of chronic kidney stones from uric acid may also need to monitor their levels. This might require urine tests for uric acid and other substances as well as blood tests. In some cases, they may additionally need to take urate-lowering therapies or other treatments to reduce the risk of future stones.
As always, remember to work with your healthcare provider to put your results in the context of your total health. Your uric acid level is one test that can give important information about potential treatment strategies. Fortunately, we have good treatments available for the hyperuricemia sometimes detected by this test. Sign up for our Health Tip of the Day newsletter, and receive daily tips that will help you live your healthiest life. Physiology of hyperuricemia and urate-lowering treatments.
Front Med Lausanne. George C, Minter DA. In: StatPearls [Internet]. Treatment of hyperuricemia in chronic kidney disease. Contrib Nephrol. Tumor lysis syndrome: new challenges and recent advances. Adv Chronic Kidney Dis. American Association for Clinical Chemistry. Uric acid. Reviewed May 17, Part 1: systematic nonpharmacologic and pharmacologic therapeutic approaches to hyperuricemia.
Arthritis Care Res Hoboken. Target serum urate: Do gout patients know their goal? Uric acid nephrolithiasis: a systemic metabolic disorder. Clin Rev Bone Miner Metab. Your Privacy Rights. A health professional will clean the skin surface with antiseptic and place an elastic band tourniquet around the upper arm to apply pressure and cause the veins to swell with blood. Then a needle is inserted into a vein usually in the arm inside of the elbow or on the back of the hand and blood is withdrawn and collected in a vial or syringe.
After the procedure, the elastic band is removed. Once the blood has been collected, the needle is removed and the area is covered with cotton or a bandage to stop the bleeding. Collecting the blood for the test will only take a few minutes. Collecting a blood sample is only temporarily uncomfortable and can feel like a quick pinprick.
Afterward, there may be some mild bruising, which should go away in a few days. The blood sample will be processed by a machine. The results usually are available within days. The uric acid blood test is considered a safe procedure. However, as with many medical tests, some problems can occur with having blood drawn, like:. Having a blood test is relatively painless. Still, many children are afraid of needles.
Explaining the test in terms your child can understand might help ease any fear. Another option for uric acid testing is to test your urine over a hour period. Sometimes your doctor will recommend both to confirm a diagnosis. Your doctor or another healthcare provider takes blood from a vein, usually from your inner elbow or the back of your hand.
First, they sterilize the area with an antiseptic. They then wrap an elastic band around your arm to allow blood to fill the veins. They next insert a needle into your vein. The blood is collected in an attached vial. Once the blood has been collected, the healthcare provider will untie the plastic band and remove the needle from the vein. For infants and young children, the healthcare provider may make a small cut on the arm and use a test strip or slide to collect a small sample of blood.
Uric acid levels can vary based on sex. Normal values are 1. However, the values may vary based on the lab doing the testing. Hyperuricemia is defined as a blood uric acid level greater than 6. Having cancer or undergoing cancer treatment can also raise your uric acid levels.
However, your doctor can make an educated guess based on high blood levels and your gout symptoms. This is known as asymptomatic hyperuricemia. Blood draws are routine and very safe. The risks associated with a uric acid blood test are the same as those associated with any blood draw. Uric acid blood tests may cause:. However, this is a rare occurrence, as are the other complications noted here. Your uric acid blood test results can help determine what treatments are appropriate. In some cases, you may not need treatment.
If your doctor diagnoses you with gout, treatment could include taking medications to reduce pain and swelling.
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