How did I get introduced to gout? It was 1983 and I was sitting in my office in the Philippines with my left foot propped up on my desk. It seemed like the pain would never stop no matter in what position I placed my foot.
I had taken some painkiller but the pain got steadily worse. Finally I called the doctor that I knew and asked him if he could see me right away. By the time I arrived my foot had swollen so much that I had to remove my sandal.
The doctor didn’t have a clue!
After examining me the doctor determined that I must have an infection in the large joint of the big toe on my left foot. He gave me some antibiotics and told me to drink a lot of water and stay off my foot.
After a few days I was back to normal and figured that I must if picked up some type of infection in my foot. Since clean drinking water was hard to come by in the Philippines I thought perhaps I had not been drinking enough water.
I thought the agony was over.
As it turned out I sold my interest in the Philippine company and moved back to the USA. It wasn’t until 1984 that the same thing happened to me again, only worse. Once again I woke up with a severely swollen left foot.
I called a walk-in clinic to see if they could take me right away. I was met at the curb with a wheelchair and a doctor with a grin on his face. I asked the doctor if he had any idea what was wrong with my foot.
What a shock!
He smiled and said while pointing at a picture on the wall, “does this look familiar?” The picture looked just like my foot. It was a picture of a foot swollen with gout. The doctor asked me what I had to eat the night before
When I told him a large turkey dinner and a couple beers he nodded his head and told me he knew what was wrong. Since I had eaten foods rich in purines along with some alcohol, the uric acid in my blood had crystallized in the joint of my big toe.
This was a life altering moment.
He gave me some painkillers, a prescription for a gout medication, and a list of foods I should not eat. Up until recently I have had several gout attacks. So many times I thought I could cheat and avoid gout, but my body cannot be fooled.
What I have discovered is eating food low in purines, drinking at least six full glasses of water daily, getting plenty of sleep, and exercising regularly goes a long way toward avoiding gout.
Blame it on my genes.
A tendency toward gout seems to be genetic. My father and grandfather both had gout attacks. Sometimes medication must be used as a temporary relief, but not as a cure. In my experience the only way to ward off gout attacks is to stick to strict food and drink limitations.
Sometimes this requires a lifestyle change. The good news is a good diet to prevent gout will also lead to a healthier body and a less stressful life. It hasn’t been easy to cure gout, but it can be done by carefully following some basic rules.
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