"The Gout"

Throughout the years I've had gout attacks but had no idea. I would just get strange pain in my foot that I assumed was from standing too long at work. Then in 2005 I woke up one morning and thought I had broken my big toe. It hurt so bad I could barely walk. I had to drive myself to the ER. I was driving a stick back then and since this was my left toe every time I pushed in the clutch I nearly screamed in pain. I blew a few stop signs and red lights on the way to the ER just to avoid having to shift lol. The nurse took one look at my toe and said she thought it was gout. I was only 31 at the time and thought only older people got that but she took an X-Ray and sure enough it came back negative for a fracture.

With gout you will notice your toe, or other affected joint, is really red and warm to the touch. It also can move. I've had it move from one toe to the toe on the other foot! It tends to affect your toes and feet first because the crystals travel to your coldest spot for some reason and they naturally head to the lowest spots on your body but they can affect your fingers, knees, and even hips from what I've been told. They told me it's like having glass in between your joints, that's what causes all the pain. If not treated your joints can become damaged or you can develop kidney stones.

My second bout with gout that summer I had to have my girlfriend get a wheelchair for me because I couldn't walk from the car to the ER. I had to go to the ER at the time because I had no insurance but I was in so much pain. The worst is at night your big toe will throb and keep you awake and just the weight of the blanket will make the pain feel so much worse. The colchicine is bad. I was told to take a tablet every hour until I get diarrhea and then stop. This is the actual instructions lol. They don't tell you you better not have any plans for the next 48 hours because you're going to be in the bathroom a lot with the worst case of the runs of your life! Not only that but you feel like you have the flu. I don't know what's worse, the pain from the gout or the diarrhea and cramps from the colchicine. I was also put on a steroid once and that took away the pain but kept me awake for days. Cherry juice in the pure form does help. I ate a bunch of black tart cherries and that seemed to help too. They say you can put a spinach leaf or something and wrap it around your toe to drain it but I didn't find that worked, it only made my foot smell really bad.

The best thing to do is prevent a gout attack with allipurinol. The problem with this medication is when you first start it you will get a bad flare up. I was off of it for a while and restarted it and sure enough got a flare up and found myself limping. The kicker is my uric acid was only 5.3, well in the normal range.

I don't drink a lot of beer but I did notice beer and wine would cause attacks. Drinking too much soda also did it for me. Drink lots of water if you are allowed too as this will flush out your system. That's my best advice.