At 35, I discovered that I had gout. Imagine having to give up everything you love to eat and drink | Daniel Lavalle
I wake up with searing pain in my right foot, the worst pain I have ever felt. Worse than the time I broke my back after falling 16ft from a cricket practice net, worse than when a rusty nail, sticking out of a rickety chair, bored into my limp arm baby and worse than any pain in my teeth over the years. I turn on the light, carefully pull back the covers, and discover an angry red ball, the size and shape of a golf ball, throbbing on the big toe of my right foot. I have no idea how it happened. It's like I've been sucked into a cartoon overnight and Daffy Duck hit me with an Acme hammer.
In my opinion not -expert, the toe looks broken. I think I should go to hospital but I think the NHS is too busy and what can they do about a broken toe other than say "you have a broken toe" and send me on my way with crutches and painkillers. Also, I'm too lazy. In fact, that's the real reason I'm not going; the NHS bit was to make me look good in your eyes. Soz.
Anyway, after many desperate, desperate calls to the hotel I'm staying at, a kind receptionist retrieves crutches from a nearby Argos and book in my room. Somehow I manage to collect my belongings and hobble with my new poles to Euston station.
When I get back to home, my mother torpedoes my plan to let the toe heal itself. She tells me my foot could be sore and disfigured for life, or I could end up like Bob Marley, who she says rejected a sore toe and died of cancer soon after. Marley's story inspires enough danger in me and I let mum drop me off at the Royal Oldham Hospital.
After a surprisingly short wait at A&E, I can tell a triage nurse about the mystery. "Do you think I hit him during the night?" I ask him, I hope. The nurse looks at my toe, "No, it's gout," she says. "Drop!?" I say. "That's right," she said, a little too happily, tapping on her desk keyboard. I do not believe that. Gout is a disease I associate with old rich gluttons or bigamous old Tudors, but apparently I've managed to cram a lifetime of greed into just 35 years.
Gout occurs because the kidneys cannot more effectively filter uric acid out of the body. The acid eventually crystallizes in the joints and can lead to severe inflammation.
All the good things in life can trigger it: foods high in purines - compounds chemicals that form uric acid when metabolized - such as red meat, seafood, alcohol and cakes. This is why it is called the disease of the rich man because for centuries only a king like Henry VIII could afford to live like this. Now, any...
I wake up with searing pain in my right foot, the worst pain I have ever felt. Worse than the time I broke my back after falling 16ft from a cricket practice net, worse than when a rusty nail, sticking out of a rickety chair, bored into my limp arm baby and worse than any pain in my teeth over the years. I turn on the light, carefully pull back the covers, and discover an angry red ball, the size and shape of a golf ball, throbbing on the big toe of my right foot. I have no idea how it happened. It's like I've been sucked into a cartoon overnight and Daffy Duck hit me with an Acme hammer.
In my opinion not -expert, the toe looks broken. I think I should go to hospital but I think the NHS is too busy and what can they do about a broken toe other than say "you have a broken toe" and send me on my way with crutches and painkillers. Also, I'm too lazy. In fact, that's the real reason I'm not going; the NHS bit was to make me look good in your eyes. Soz.
Anyway, after many desperate, desperate calls to the hotel I'm staying at, a kind receptionist retrieves crutches from a nearby Argos and book in my room. Somehow I manage to collect my belongings and hobble with my new poles to Euston station.
When I get back to home, my mother torpedoes my plan to let the toe heal itself. She tells me my foot could be sore and disfigured for life, or I could end up like Bob Marley, who she says rejected a sore toe and died of cancer soon after. Marley's story inspires enough danger in me and I let mum drop me off at the Royal Oldham Hospital.
After a surprisingly short wait at A&E, I can tell a triage nurse about the mystery. "Do you think I hit him during the night?" I ask him, I hope. The nurse looks at my toe, "No, it's gout," she says. "Drop!?" I say. "That's right," she said, a little too happily, tapping on her desk keyboard. I do not believe that. Gout is a disease I associate with old rich gluttons or bigamous old Tudors, but apparently I've managed to cram a lifetime of greed into just 35 years.
Gout occurs because the kidneys cannot more effectively filter uric acid out of the body. The acid eventually crystallizes in the joints and can lead to severe inflammation.
All the good things in life can trigger it: foods high in purines - compounds chemicals that form uric acid when metabolized - such as red meat, seafood, alcohol and cakes. This is why it is called the disease of the rich man because for centuries only a king like Henry VIII could afford to live like this. Now, any...
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