Mayo Clinic Health Manager
Get free personalized health guidance for you and your family.
Get Started
About our e-newsletters
- Free e-newsletters
- Mayo Clinic expertise
- We do not share your e-mail address
Housecall, our weekly general-interest e-newsletter, keeps you up to date on a wide variety of health topics with timely, reliable, practical information, recipes, blogs, questions and answers with Mayo Clinic experts and more. Our biweekly topic-specific e-newsletters also include blogs, questions and answers with Mayo Clinic experts, and other useful information that will help you manage your health.
Housecall Archives
Mayo Clinic Housecall
Stay up to date on the latest health information.
What you get
- Free weekly e-newsletter
- Mayo Clinic expertise
- Recipes, tools and other helpful information
- We do not share your e-mail address
Treatments and drugs
By Mayo Clinic staffPseudogout treatment aims to reduce your pain and swelling. No treatments can rid your joints of the CPPD crystals that lead to pseudogout.
Treatments to relieve the pain and inflammation of pseudogout include:
- Nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) such as ibuprofen (Advil, Motrin, others), naproxen (Aleve) and indomethacin (Indocin). NSAIDs can cause stomach bleeding and decreased kidney function, especially in older adults, so discuss these risks with your doctor.
- Colchicine. This medication reduces inflammation in people with gout, but it may also be useful in people with pseudogout who can't take NSAIDs. Side effects include stomach pain, nausea, diarrhea and vomiting. In rare cases, bleeding can occur.
- Joint aspiration and injection. To relieve pain and pressure in an affected joint, your doctor inserts a needle and removes some of the joint fluid. Then he or she injects a corticosteroid to decrease inflammation and an anesthetic to temporarily numb your joint.
- Rest. Keeping your affected joints still in addition to taking medications may relieve pain and swelling. Your doctor may recommend limiting your activity for a short time.
If your pseudogout is caused by joint trauma or a disease such as hemochromatosis, you may find relief when those conditions are treated first.
