It’s official, I have the old man’s disease, better known as Gout!
After a few weeks of bad joint pain alternating between my right and left foot, I finally took Cindy’s nagging advice and went to an urgent care center this morning.
The doctor (she had an awesome British accent) listened to my symptoms, examined my swollen, discolored big toe joint on my left foot and diagnosed exactly what Cindy had suggested a couple of weeks ago; I have the old man’s disease known as gout!
I have been prescribed a steroid (which will raise my blood sugar levels, but it can’t be helped), a strong pain reliever, and told to stay off my feet as much as possible. I’d already been doing that for a few days as much as I could and it helped reduce the swelling/pain, but not much. Anyway, now Cindy gets to wait on me hand and FOOT (pun intended) a little longer.
I’m trying to figure out exactly what caused mine. I don’t drink much beer (hell, if I have two a year that’s a lot), our red meat intake is not excessive and neither of us eat shellfish. These are three of the top causes of a rise in uric acid which is what results in gout. However, diabetics and those with kidney issues can be predisposed to getting gout, and I fit into both those categories. But, as the doctor told us, it can also be just a little of one of those foods or some other food that I may be sensitive to. Or it could be genetics though I don’t recall either of my parents (men get it more than women, but post-menopausal women can develop it also) ever having said they had gout.
So, I will probably have to get my PCP to prescribe a preventative medication in order to stop having these painful attacks. But I have to wait until a couple of weeks after this bout has subsided because the doctor said they don’t work while the flare-up is happening.
When I was a kid and head of someone with gout, I imagined some decrepit old person with barely any time left on this earth. But I don’t feel old and decrepit and I hope I have more than a little time left in this old world.
It just goes to show what time and perspective can do to change your view.
And now I totally understand what Charles Dickens meant when he wrote, “Gout introduces you to a variety of new sensations which otherwise would be closed to you.”
For my part, I would have rather skipped the introduction to gout.
