Gout Diet Blog

bout two years ago, I had a relatively mild attack — and had noidea what it was. It hurt to walk, but I managed it OTC NSAIDS. Acollegue suggested it might be gout, but I put it out of my mind whenthe pain went away. I think the “precipitating event” might havebeen the fact that I was trying out the “Atkins” diet to try to losethe extra baggage I’ve gained since high school.

Currently, I’m 32, slightly overweight, a bit sedentary — but, Ireally don’t eat “richly,” and don’t ever drink alcohol.

Anyway, about a year later, (and a rather large serving of some sortof delicious “bean,”) I had an awful attack. Being a nurse, I’veseen worse, but for me — it was god-awful. I had to stay home fornearly a week, at times, the pain was so unbearable that it was theworst thing just to lower my foot to even TRY to walk — much lesswalking itself.

It was a weekend, and having no health problems until this point, hadto resort to going to an ER for treatment. After 5 hours in thewaiting room, I went back home — deciding I could suffer better athome.

Anyway, during the week, I did manage to get professional help, andwas given Indocin. By this time, the pain was a bit better, and theswelling had gone down, and they told me it wasn’t large enough totry and “tap” the joint with a needle. I didn’t care; what I had hada name, and I was given something to help the pain.

A few weeks later, I followed up; this time with blood and urinesamples. I was pronounced as not having gout, since my uric acidlevels were slightly elevated, but not high enough to call it “gout.”

I chose another physician a few months later, and not only explainedmy problems, but other health issues that seemed to arise as well.At the time, I was beginning to doubt if I had gout — due to someother signs and symptoms. I was convinced I was having some sort oftissue disorder; my tongue looked blotchy, my scalp was red andirritable — plus the occasional “gouty” episodes. I had a great-aunt that died with sclerederma — and I feared the worst. Thisdoctor ordered half-a-million labs to rule out a plethora ofdiseases. My uric acid levels were quite high; so she pronouncedme “gouty” and put me on allopurinal. She also stated I just neededa good dandruff shampoo, and that I had an unrelated, benigncondition called “geographic tongue.”

Anyway, within a few days of taking allopurinal, some amazing thingshappened. Though I wasn’t “gouty” at the time, I did notice someother positive improvements. All of my skin and tonguediscolorations completely disappeared! My scalp is perfect, and mytongue looks perfectly normal — though it had once resembled a mapof the Florida coast line and the Keys.

I’ve had a slight gouty attack since then. I was at work overnight,and caught it just as it started — with NSAIDS. It lasted for acouple of days, but it never worsened since I “beat it down” withcolchicine when I got home (and wisely held the allo while it wasgoing on). Funny thing, right before it happened, I had lapsed a bitwith my diet, and my skin had started acting up again.

Though my physician never verified this, it seems that this(especially my tongue) is an early warning sign (at least for me)that I’ve got too much uric acid.