Blogger me, my foot hurts.

I wonder how many low-grade puns on the word 'Blog' I can think of over the coming weeks?

Today I thought I would talk about my gout. Now, many people who know what gout is are astounded that a man of my age can have it (and indeed have had it for about 5 years).

"Isn't that just something old men get?" they will cry. Well, no it isn't. It's mainly something you'll be genetically predisposed to and gout can develop at any point in your life. My maternal grandfather suffered with it, as does my father - so I'm basically screwed there then, both sides of the family coming together in a genetic gout-stew.

It has to be the most excruciating pain I've ever been through when I have a particularly bad attack of it.

I'm in the middle of a mild attack at the moment - mild enough that it hasn't stopped me hobbling around for the most part, yet still at times the pain has been intense and I've had no choice but to rest up my foot. It's now about 5 days into the attack and all being well it should be on the way out - they tend to last about a week.

I've had it in both feet, although it seems to normally manifest in the right foot's big toe joint, which means apart from the seriously inflamed moments, I can normally roll on the heel of my foot and scoot around slowly, although obviously it's still very limiting to how much I can do. A couple of times though I've had an attack in the middle of the foot beneath the toes - Christ alive that was awful - and I could put not the slightest bit of pressure on the foot.

The adjacent picture is not my foot (It's this fellow's), but is a fair reflection of what normally happens when I have a mild attack - you can see the inflammation if you compare the feet quite clearly. My right foot is similar to that now.

Last time I had a major attack was about Feb this year, which started in one foot and as that got better 7 days later, I had a further attack in the other foot so was laid up immobile for pretty much two weeks. I managed to get a bulk-load of NSAIDs from the GP at that point, so although i have a twinge every couple of months or so, if I take a few Diclofenacs or Ibuprofens, I can normally avert a full-blown attack. Like an active volcano though, I think there is always a great big bastard of an attack just around the corner, so it plays on my mind quite a lot.

I've had to cancel evenings out, weekends away and all sorts because of gout these past few years - what really, really worries me is I'm getting married next October. If I can't walk on the day it'll be a bit of a downer.

Am worried it's going to be crippling me for the rest of my life to be honest. The pain is bad enough now, but at least after a week it's gone so it's just a matter of 'riding it out' at the moment. I have seen some pictures online of the permanent damage gout can do to the joints however and its actually quite a worry. I was going to post a pic here but you might be eating as you read this. Just go to google images and type gout. Oh my god.

Sadly there is not really a cure - only preventative measures. Which means I need to cut down on alcohol, lose weight and limit certain foods.

Oddly enough, it's the food part which always perplexes me as there seems to be some disagreement on the list of items to avoid within the medical community.

I grew up with a father who swore blind that cheese gave him his gout, and this does appear to be the first thing most people assume is really bad for it. Yet everything I've read since I started my attacks says all dairy, cheese included, is fine for gout.

Foods high in 'purines' have been long-cited as the cause of the uric acid build up.

So this would be the obvious rich foods such as red meats, shellfish, offal - but also includes items you may not expect to see there - like asparagus, cauliflower, mushrooms, spinach & Whole-grain breads/cereals.

So what CAN i eat during an attack? A nice plain cheese sandwich (being careful to make sure it's not whole-grain bread, too)? Options do appear limited, and as such I spent my last attack eating macaroni cheese for 2 weeks and little else.

Yet I read something else this week that suggested more recent study found no direct link between some purine-rich foods and the production of uric acid in the body.

Also, some foodstuffs seem to cause a reaction in certain people but not in others, with no real medical basis for this. I'm certain that turkey, tomatoes & citrus fruits bring it on with me, and a friend's father at the weekend said red peppers were the worst thing for him.

One thing I do know is cherries help lessen the inflammation for me. I was told this by someone a few years back and it does seem to work. It may be psychosomatic to some degree but if it gives me comfort that I may be helping lesson the inflammation I'm all for it.

When the gouty foot is fully inflamed (and my right foot has actually looked like an opaque, oblong pink balloon before), dropping a bed sheet on the foot feels like someone has dropped a lead weight on it.

Sometimes during an attack, the pain comes from nowhere as well. I was stood in the queue at Sainsbury's yesterday with my purine-free foodstuffs, having hobbled there reasonably easy enough. Then all of a sudden a shooting, pulsating pain went running up and down my gouty foot that i couldn't get away from even though i was putting no pressure on the joint. I nearly dropped a block of cheese on my foot. That would have hurt.

All in all, it's a real fecking pain and I think sometimes non-sufferers may not realise quite how much it can affect a gout sufferer's life. It's often treated as a bit of a joke as some may think it's just like a sprained ankle or something - but truth is there are times when the pain is so excruciating that if someone offered to cut off your foot you'd take it.

As it is, I still have both my feet as no-one has actually offered yet. If you do happen to be passing my flat with a hacksaw in the future though and hear the wails of a gout-riddled urchin from above, do feel free to pop up.

Over & Gout.