Ayurvedic management of Vatarakta with special reference to Gout: A Case Study

Vatarakta is a disease explained in Ayurveda involving Vata Dosha imbalance affecting Rakta Dhatu, where the Vayu gets aggravated due to long distance rides on animals like elephants, camels, horses, and on the other hand Rakta or blood gets vitiated by the consumption of Lavana, Amla, Katu, Kshara etc. The Vata, whose passages are blocked by Rakta further undergoes vitiation and further contaminates the Rakta or blood. The blood vitiated by Vayu later burns the whole blood in the body and later gravitates towards thefoot. This vicious amalgamation of vitiated Vata and Rakta is called Vatarakta. Vatarakta can even be correlated to Gout on the basis of etiopathology.

A 45 years old female patient approached the OPD with the chief complaints of: Right great toe pain, swelling along with discoloration. Right ankle joint pain, swelling along with burning sensation of b/l sole. Right wrist joint pain along with difficulty in movements & Generalised weakness was also seen. All the above complains were since 4 months. The patient was given completely Ayurvedic medicines such as Kaishor guggul, Amrutadi guggul, Sanshamani Vati, Guduchi kwath for oral consumption & Pinda Tail (Sukhoshna) for local application & sarvanganadisweda with dashmool kwath for 2 months, follow up was taken on every week for 2 months. The results were remarkably seen. Hence this study was taken to prove that Ayurvedic management has remarkable results in Vatarakta (Gout).