Here's a little public service announcement for you guys
A couple weeks ago I noticed a pain in my left foot at the base of my big toe. I had injured it about 7 years ago playing football with some buddies, so I figured maybe I bumped it and that irritated it, and didn't think much else about it.
Another day went by and just in a matter of an hour or two the toe was so painful I couldn't even walk. When I tried to put weight on it, the tendon across the top of the toe would tense-up and the pain in the toe would be so intense I'd almost buckle to my knees. I spent the rest of the day laid up with ice on it. My wife told me it sounded like gout, but due to my previous injury, I just disregarded most of what she was telling me.
So the next day I went to the clinic, had some X-rays and bloodwork done, and sure as sh!#, it turns out that I had gout. I always thought that gout was something that "older people" got, and being 33, I never expected it.
I started some meds and within two days the toe was pretty much back to normal. Thankfully acute gout attacks are fairly easy to treat. But I started researching a bit to find out why I might have got it. Gout occurs when there is a build up of uric acid in your blood, which can form sharp needle-like crystals that tend to accumulate around joints, mainly in the foot, and specifically at the base of the big toe. There are many different things that can cause it, including diet (high intake of red meat and certain seafoods, alcohol) certain medical conditions (hypertension), or family history of gout. None of these really set off any red flags in my mind, but I also found out from the pharmacist that dehydration can play a big part in it too. He said it is very common for young men to not drink enough water.
I've known for a long time that I don't drink anywhere near the 2 liters that doctors recommend. And it doesn't help that I drink a ton of coffee, which actually dehydrates you even more. I know that the days leading up to the flair up I was definitely lacking water.
Since then I've been trying to drink a minimum of 2 liters a day, preferably 3 or 4 just to help flush all the bad stuff out. I'm supposed to go back in a couple weeks for another pee test to see if the uric acid levels have dropped back down to normal, so I guess that's when I'll know for sure if my lack of water was the main cause. If that's the only lifestyle change I have to make to keep it from reoccurring, that's easy enough.
So the moral of the story kiddies is to make sure you
drink your water! And no, coffee does not count!
