Gout is a long-term disease of urate crystal deposits that shows itself as sudden, very painful flares, most often in the big toe. 84,85,105 High urate comes first, crystals form silently, flares follow, and years later some people develop tophi. Below: how common it is, the four stages, and where it strikes.
How common is gout?
The figures below do not measure the same thing. A survey asks people whether a doctor ever told them they have gout. Health records count recorded diagnoses. A model (the Global Burden of Disease study) adjusts many sources to one definition and to a standard age structure. Each bar names its measure. Compare bars of the same kind. 41,80,146
Show
Solid bars: observed (survey or records). Outlined bars: modelled, age-standardised. Grey: not a population sample. Tap a bar for the source and what it counts.
The four stages
Dalbeth and Stamp proposed four stages in 2014. Not everyone moves through all of them, and lowering urate can stop the march at any point. Press play to watch one joint go from stage A to stage D. 77,85
Person
Schematic, not to scale. The person's urate level, the symptom track and the timing are illustrative. Stage boundaries vary from person to person, and stages B and C can last for years.
Where flares strike
Tap a site. Only the big toe has a sourced first-flare percentage; for the other joints the research gives where gout goes, not how often it starts there. 105,337,403