Whatzit?
What conditions could cause pain in the muscle or ligaments, ortendons near a knee joint or my heel area (not sure exactly what ishurting, but it isn’t in the joint like gout is)?
This condition recurs periodically, and by the time I can make anappointment and get in to see my doctor, the pain has gone. The painprocess usually starts and stops within a two week period. I’ve hadthis happen to my Achilles and heel, too. I need to know what to useas a departure point with the doctor; i.e., what I suspect might bewrong.
Malia Berthelette on June 21st, 2007
Does it typically happen a day or two after serious use of the affectedarea? The heel pain could be plantar faciaitis (spelling?), which Irecently figured out for the first time after a good workout with notenough stretching. I had experienced it several times before, but itwasn’t very serious and always disappeared without effort on my part.Regular stretching of the calf muscle after a week of rest for the leghas been a good remedy for me.
However, don’t start stretching based simply on my experience. Iwouldn’t want your condition to get worse because of a bad assumptionthat it might help.
The symptom I felt was similar to gout, in that there was a slightswelling at the back of the heel, and pain when walking. (hobbling) Theless I used it, the worse it seemed to get. My wife noticed that mycalf muscle was very tight in the same leg, and that was the clue todiscovering the cause. Treatment of the tightness in the calf -stretching and massage - relieved the heel pain as well.
Sabina Shamel on June 22nd, 2007
You, we, as gout sufferers have an inability to remove enough uricacid from our systems and it accumulates. Why we cannot get rid ofenough uric acid is for most physicians and for you and me, unknown,Fungal involvement, of course,not withstanding (a feeble attempt athumor). My suspicion is that we also fail to properly process otherend product metabolites besides just uric acid.
A well documented side effect from taking allopurinol is joint,tendon and muscle aches that can come close to crippling you forshort periods of time, i.e. a day or two. It always goes away but itis not an easy condition to deal with. Indeed it does not feel like agout attack but is, nontheless, painful and difficult to deal with.Mine and those reported by other allopp[urinol takers, are no wherenear the same intensity as a real gout attack and not nearly as longlived. If you are on allopurinol, it suggests that you are notgetting enough water through your system.
I get the same kind of pains you describe after a workout and it isespecially true if I am in the third succesive day of a regularworkout routine. I find that if I push through mine and keep thewater intake at a high level, it all pretty much goes away.
I doubt if it is uric acid but I suspect that it is some othermetabolite, or combination of metabolites, that your body is just notgood at processing. In other words I am speculating-and this is myown pure speculation here, that in addition to not being abble toremove sufficient uric acid, your body also is unable to remove othermetabolites as well. Actually one of my primary candidate is lacticacid. I’m sure you know the culprit. It’s the one that makes you sosore you can hardly walk when you play softball at the company picnicafter not having played, or for that matter even run hard, for overfive years.
I do not think the pain I get is from uric acid crystals, but, I dobelieve it is caused by the same metabolic failure mechanisms thatcause the excess uric acid.
Increase the water intake, take a celebrex or two and I bet it goesaway pretty easily.