Steve woke up yesterday in terrible pain. He had stabbing pains coming from the bunion area of his foot. It was so bad that he skipped work and went to the emergency room. They x-rayed his foot and didn’t discover any breaks or fractures. So, they gave him crutches (or stilts as Jonah calls them) and pain killers and sent him home.
This morning, his foot still hurt terribly. He popped more pain killers and called in sick again.
A few hours later, he’s puking his guts out. He sets up an appointment with a podiatrist at 5:00 and suffers through the day.
So, what’s ailing, Steve? Can you guess? If I was Flea, I might offer the winner a prize from my garage of sex toys. Too bad that I’m not that cool. Instead, I’ll tell you the answer below the flap.
The puking was from a bad reaction to the pain killer. No relationship to the foot.
The podiatrist asked Steve two questions. Question One = Have you been in an injury? Steve says no. Question Two = Have you eaten a lot of shellfish and red meat? Steve said, "Yeah, I just came back from Cape Cod. I ate nothing but clams, lobsters, and scallops for a week. Then I came back and my SIL made London Broil. And the next day, we had steaks for dinner."
The doctor told him that he had gout. Steve ODed on lobster.
Apt. 11d 
Oh, my husband has gout – it mostly affects his ankle. My sympathies. It appears to hurt like the dickens for about a week if you don’t medicate it – with the right meds, it feels better after a couple of days, and the swelling will go down over time.
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Awesome – that’s like being Henry VIII, or one of those robber barons who would eat an entire baked ham before getting out of bed. Now maybe he can go for other old-fashioned sounding diseases: scurvy, rickets, shingles. Maybe even a case of the dropsy.
(Not to belittle any suffering, of course.)
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Wow, I win–I read the first part and I thought, gotta be gout. Only the vomiting puzzled me.
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Wow. Glad he got a diagnosis. Hope he is feeling better.
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oh, my husband has gout, too, and the first time it attacked it was indeed excruciating. My sympathies. The allopurinal (I think that’s the drug) does keep it at bay, though.
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I, too, suspected gout (my father-in-law suffers from it). No fun! I hope that Steve’s over the reaction to the painkiller and getting some relief from the symptoms of gout.
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I didn’t get gout, but I guessed the painkillers caused the vomiting–happened to my dad. Nasty things.
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I got it from the first para (but then I would, wouldn’t I?). Why didn’t the ER get it? Its pretty common, and the first thing you think of if you know the symptoms.
If he starts allopurinol daily, as he probably should, I’ll be curious to know if he gets nightmares from it. I had dreadful nightmares the first 5 months of it (which then disappeared). They’re not recorded as a side effect of allopurinol but then, as my doctor said, they might be a side effect of discovering you have gout!
Gout is the most painful thing I’ve experienced by far. (My comparison class includes 2 very serious beatings up, one by LA cops, and a pretty bad car wreck). IS it worse than childbirth, I often wonder?
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Harry, I’ve never had gout, but I often describe the shots I’ve had in my feet (had localized anesthetic once and also a cortisone shot) as the Worst Pain Ever. And I’ve had two kids without an epidural. There’s something about foot pain that is excruciating.
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You never fail to give us a chuckle. My husband knew from his early 20’s that he would probably have gout – do to his uric acid levels. When it finally occurred we went to the ER – the residents x-rayed his foot and proudly said they discovered a fracture – and wrapped his foot as tightly as they could. By the way this is very painful if you are having a gout attack. All the while he was protesting that his doctor said this is what a gout attack would feel like and he broke that toe years ago.
Fast forward 20 years later – his gout has found many new and exciting places to travel. His doctor asks to bring in a resident and my husband agrees. He says – this is a classic case of a man who presents goat in multiple places besides the big toe and ankle. First of all, he is obviously well fed….
There is one advantage to gout – when the gall stones arrive they can be treated through medicine since they are not made of calcium. If your husband wakes up and asks like he is in labor you will know the cause – we laugh and say the stones don’t cost another college education.
Good luck and lay off the purines.
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Thanks, guys for the sympathy and the mockery. And glutton-boy certainly deserves some mockery. That’s what you get for eating nothing but lobster rolls and beer.
So, what should Steve eat? I want to flush those purines out of his system this week. No protein, right? That rules out tofu, too. So, should he eat pasta and salad all week?
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