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Another thing, and I guess I kinda touched on it between the lines before, colchicine terrifies me. It is extremely poisonous, and I was a little perturbed that my doctor sent the prescription so nonchalantly with no serious counseling. When I read about the toxicity, the uncertainty of lethal dose, and the fact that essentially 100% of patients treated with it show signs of poisoning from it I was more than a little nervous to try it. Needless to say when on top of that I didn’t notice an immediate improvement I was more than a little disappointed. I’m not arguing it shouldn’t be used, far from it. I just think doctors are uninformed and stuck in the dark ages (in the case of colchicine quite literally). They need to take something like that more seriously. Outside of chemotherapy I don’t think there is much that is that toxic that is routinely used.
So, on the colchicine, since the inflammation had already been there for about 2 weeks before it was even prescribed, it seems that perhaps there was no point in taking it at all. The doctor probably would have done better prescribing a more potent anti-inflammatory? I can keep the colchicine around in case of another flare up and take it right away next time.
I’m not exactly hopeful about the podiatrist, but I’m hoping he can at least get me an X-Ray and put my mind at ease that there is nothing else visible going on, and maybe prescribe something more useful, though I’m not sure what that would be. The pain is pretty manageable now, but I’ve been taking naproxen twice daily for a week now (which makes me nervous) and the swelling is still there. It looks like a round lump or goose egg on the side of my foot at the base of the big toe. It ranges from reddened to purplish depending on how big it is at the moment. When people talk about gout flares clearing up in a few days do they mean just the pain, or also the visible swelling? Do I try to convince them to shoot some cortisone into the joint? Doesn’t sound fun but I’m pretty sure that would clear it up almost instantly. I don’t know what NSAIDs are given on a prescription basis now. People on the internet talk about indomethacin but I was under the impression that isn’t used much anymore, perhaps just a higher dose of naproxen would knock it out. I have no other health issues so nothing should be outright contraindicated.
My last 4 days of morning measurements showed 6.3,6.2,5.6 and 6.2 mg/dL. So I think long term of below 6 should be possible with no medication. The foot pain has been keeping me from exercising and the one time I tried to take vitamin C was when the pain got much worse the next day, so I’m not going to try again until this clears up completely. This will require a rather annoying change in my diet (meat and beer were really cornerstones for me).
