Gout-standing Achievements

This month Olly Mann comes to terms with a surprising diagnosis

Olly Mann comes to terms with a foot ailment in his inimitable style.

There’s only one health story in town, of course, and that’s my ongoing foot injury. This is because I have just discovered that nasty red hump under my big toe wasn’t tendonitis at all, but gout. Gout!

I know, shocking news. Pour yourself a stiff drink to recover! Or don’t, if you’re susceptible to gout. Which you might be. I didn’t think I was. But after six weeks of waiting for a foot X-ray, I buckled and consulted a GP, who diagnosed it in an instant.

In as much as I had ever considered the condition, I had imagined that gout was strictly for portly Victorian gentlemen with sideburns, or blokes in tracksuits who subsist solely on beer and crisps. But then the doc scribbled down a list of trigger foods, and suddenly the diagnosis didn’t seem so unlikely.

“Red meat is to be avoided,” he said. But we’ve just got a new barbecue! Those ribs won’t smoke themselves!

“And don’t drink coffee excessively.” OK, so that coffee beans subscription may not have been the best idea.

“Cheese is especially problematic. Just a small slither occasionally.” My online grocery order has been 29 per cent cheese.

“Chickpeas should be eaten only in moderation”, he continued. Chickpeas? Hummus is my favourite lubricant and the thought it could do me harm hit me like a Dear John letter.

“Spinach should be wilted, not raw.” Eh? We all know raw spinach is good for you! Literally nobody eats raw spinach for fun! Are you telling me I could have been gobbling back chips, and that would have actually been better for me?

“Eggs are fine, but not too many.” We’ve got chickens as pets! ‘ Too Many Eggs’ is our way of life. Too

Many Eggs could be the title of my memoirs.

“And really,” the doctor concluded, “you must cut down your alcohol consumption.” This was the hardest bit to hear, because, frankly, with two kids, and a pandemic to pull through, the prospect of my nightly glass (or two, or three) of wine had really been helping me get through the afternoons.

But I knew, deep down, that the anticipation ahead of the first glass of the evening was a signal of increasing dependency.

He sent me home with a small course of Etoricoxib, an anti-inflammatory drug, and, in a mere three days, the throbbing pain I’d endured for six weeks subsided. Next, I did what a lot of folks do after receiving bad news: I bought some shoes.

Not a sparkly pair of Jimmy Choos, mind: some Crocs. If this is going to be a recurring problem, I reasoned, Poppa’s gonna need some brand new sandals. For weeks I’d been traipsing around in my ‘bin shoes’ – some truly appallingly cheap plastic clogs I’d bought from a sports warehouse specifically for taking out the bins – because they were the only shoes I owned that my bloated hoof could comfortably enter. Crocs are really only acceptable footwear for kitchen assistants, or kidney surgeons, or anyone who works in a place where their feet come into regular contact with offal, but I found some smart(er)

I DID WHAT A LOT OF FOLKS DO AFTER RECEIVING BAD NEWS: I BOUGHT SOME SHOES

navy blue ones, with a little red stripe around the bottom and no visible branding, and felt instantly more zen. I was still wearing Crocs, yes; but at least I didn’t smell of bin.

The next step, obviously, was to spend some money on vegan cookbooks. “Got gout, have you?” said the guy at the bookstore. “So’s my motherin-law. Can’t eat scallops.”

Then off to buy a container-load of cherry juice. “My husband’s got gout,” the cashier told me. “He’s only 45!”

Virtually everyone I told replied they knew someone with gout. Rarely someone very old, or especially overweight, or nutritionally deprived: merely an individual whose body produces too much uric acid from the purines in their diet. Indeed, it turns out the majority of gout patients are men between the ages of 30 and 50 – so I’m smack-bang in the middle of the demographic.

Adapting my diet has been tough (I’ve cut alcohol to two nights per week, my coffee consumption to two cups per day, and gone veggie four days per week.) But I live in the countryside, and the idea of my toe joints becoming so damaged that it might af fect my abil it y to walk through the fields is a huge motivator. I don’t miss carbonated drinks, overnight oats are a revelation, and it turns out red meat and cheese taste even better as an occasional treat. Now I just need to work on growing those sideburns.