As you may have known from my previous posts, I was fat. I mean going-to-die-of-a-heart-attack fat. So I went on a program. I weight lifted and went on a high-protein diet. It worked like a dream. I lost weight, became stronger, was able to run and finished my first ultamarathon. I looked like a Greek god (outside of the fact I was balding, over forty and relatively short).

But, when one changes his diet to a high protein diet, there are other things that can go south. And things went wrong for me.

It started with swelling. No pain. In fact, as I walked around, the discomfort went away. But, a few days later, it hurt…badly. It was my foot. At the base of my big toe. It had swollen and discolored. The pain was uncomfortable, at first. Then it began to throb and the swelling became worse. I could barely get my shoe on and walking was almost impossible. I was running so I thought I had a running injury. Strained ligaments or, maybe, a stress fracture. I was running a lot so I became concerned enough to make an appointment with my doctor.

I hate doctors. They made me go through the whole gamete of tests. Blood pressure, heart rate, pulse-ox, temperature and, I think, the snuck in an STD test. Everything was perfect. Then the doctor came in (the medical assistants did the tests). While I was telling him about my suffering, he glanced at my foot and told me I had gout. Gout is a type of arthritis caused by high levels of uric acid in the blood. That can cause crystallization in the joints (typically the big toe). Uric acid is a result of purines which is commonly found in meat and fish. When you have gout, swelling and burning pain in the joints occurs (webmd.com). It sucks. And it is pretty much permanent.

The doctor gave me these little pills. I do not what they were but I was suppose to take one a day…for the rest of my life. The pills were not only to treat the current attack but were meant to be preventative. After four days on the medication (and forgetting to take the pills two of those days) I realized I needed to find another way to deal with this. I was not going to be able to take these things for the rest of my life.

Reading about the disease, I realized that I would need to clear the poisoned blood in order to find some relief. What’s more, I still needed to maintain my high protein diet. The best way to filter my blood? To pee. And pee a lot. Let my kidneys filter out the uric acid.

So I decided to drink water. A lot of water. I would drink a liter of water every two hours. In the beginning, I would urinate a couple of times an hour. But, as time passed, my bladder adapted and I could hold my bladder longer. After a few days, the pain and swelling went away. I drink at least five liters of water a day and I have not had an attack in almost ten years. Whenever I do not drink a lot of water, I feel the swelling come up, I just start drinking water again and it goes away.

Now, I do not know if this has ever been clinically tested or if there is anything to this, but I do know I have not been disabled by this lousy disease and I have not taken any medication. I also feel a lot better, am hydrated for my runs and am less hungry throughout the day (another way of controlling my weight). So the health benefits go way beyond just suppressing the pain.

Now, I am not saying you should no go or listen to your doctor. But if you are experiencing the same issues with gout and medication is not helping, give drinking large amounts of water a shot. What’s the worst that could happen.

References:
http://www.webmd.com/arthritis/tc/gout-topic-overview#1

Pictures courtesy of:
sciencebasedchiropractic.com
nhs.uk
webmd.com
http://strittetforlin.ch