So I’m not much of a hypochondriac, but I think I may have the gout. I woke up multiple times during the night with a sharp pain in the pad of my right big toe and a dull ache surrounding the enitre “metatarsal phalangeal joint” of my right foot.

This has happened to me numerous times in the past, about once every 6 months or so for the last 2 or 3 years. I’d always written it off as a “spider bite” but a little Google is a dangerous thing. According to Podiatry Channel, gout is “a systemic disease caused by the buildup of uric acid in the joints, causing inflammation, swelling, and pain” whose most common symptoms are “inflammation, swelling, and tenderness in the joint of the first toe.” I’ve got all 3 symptoms, but I’m iffy that the cause is a rich, meaty diet – which is one potential possibility. I ate fish twice yesterday!

The other likely cause is that I may be predisposed to having a liver which produces too much uric acid, thus exacerbating my hyperuricemia (how’s that for 10-cent words in one sentence?).
The diagnoses process is very accurate but also invasive: drawing fluid from my toe with a needle. Ouch!

Most of the time the symptoms don’t last more than 24 hours. At least for me they don’t, so I’m not going to worry about it too terribly much. I’m playing basketball today and I really hope my toe doesn’t rupture into some kind of gruesome, slimy mess. Not that this is a possibility. I just wanted to gross out as many people as I could who were still reading. Haven’t you got anything better to do than read about my disguting toe and the gout? Shoo!