Medical Status

In the fall of 1983 I ran a 10K race as part of the Homecoming activities at Shippensburg University (PA). I was wearing a pair of Nike sneakers that were more suited for tennis than running. I ran a fairly good pace of just under 8 minutes per mile. For about a month following the race, I had some mild pain and redness of the side of the joint of my left great toe. I mainly noticed the pain in the morning and thought that perhaps I had a stress fracture. In the spring of 1985 I was playing kickball with my children in the playground of James Burd Elementary School in Shippensburg. I was playing barefoot on the asphalt surface of the playing field. As I went to give the ball a hard kick with my right foot, I stubbed my great toe. I think that I waited a couple of days to check to see if I had broken the swollen and painful toe by showing up at the Emergency Room of the Chambersburg (PA) Hospital. The doctor that handled my case looked at my purple toe and said, “You have gout.” An X-ray showed that I didn't have a break, so I accepted the diagnosis and used the prescribed Indocin to reduce the inflammation. I researched gout and discovered that it was a form of arthritis. I felt that there should be a dietary solution to my new problem. I purchased a copy of New Hope for the Arthritic by Dr. Colin Dong. The author proposed a fairly rigorous dietary approach, which was similar to a macrobiotic diet. My foot pain was horrible, so I was ready to try anything. At that time I was very much engaged in physical fitness, but I was a big meat eater and a moderate to heavy drinker. I immediately took meat out of my diet and strove for a low-sodium, low-fat philosophy for eating. I put myself on a bread and water diet until the acute gout attack was over. Gout stayed away for a while as I lost weight and adopted an increasingly radical dietary approach coupled with an increasingly radical exercise regime. I gave up coffee and other caffeinated beverages. My fluid intake was restricted to water and herbal tea. I had an acute attack sometime in the late 80s while vacationing in Boston. I went to a medical clinic in Wellesley for help. While in the clinic, a urologist stuck a needle in my toe and determined that I definitely had uric acid crystals in my joint. Finally, in the fall of 1989, I gave up alcohol as well. In the summer of 1990, following a six-day backpacking trip where I maintained a foolishly low hydration level, I had an acute gout attack on my great toe (I'm not sure which foot). In the years since, I've had a couple of gout attacks per year on various joints of my legs. I have lately been on a strict low purine diet.

Background