Sep 27

 I was punished for Tuesday.

The gout came back hard - for no good reason. I was careful with what I ate, and no sugar, but it made no difference. Back on the codeine and the non stop Ibuprofen. Grim. The only thing that I can think of is that I ate later in the day on Tuesday because of the pub, and had caffeine later in the day too. Other than that. There were no differences.

I largely skipped work and instead just rested. Asleep. Nursing my shitty foot. The other foot also decided to get worse.

I can only assume it's the gout meds that are giving me this unprecedented fuckery of gout ( or more unlikely but more sinister I have kidney issues ). At this point it has been nearly 3 weeks. Perhaps on the bright side the suffering is of some benefit, it may be slowly erasing years worth of crystal build up which is why it's giving me so many problems. But eh. With even a mildly acceptable health provider, I wouldn't be suffering.

Today finally I got to speak to the pharmacist. He has offered stronger anti inflammatories that previously have been avoided because of my stomach issues. That should clear it up he said. I was confused. Anti inflammatories will not clear up gout, they will just help the symptoms. Oh. Well. Yes. He said. I said I had been suffering with this for almost 3 weeks at this point, it didn't seem like it was going away. He said that if it hadn't cleared up over the weekend I should come back in. Once it had cleared, they would up the gout meds and do another blood test.

Uh huh.

Everything is always a day late and a dollar short.

We shall see how that all pans out.

I find myself once again unimpressed and lacking in any kind of confidence in the NHS response. Even with a good doctor you so quickly fall back down into the afterthought at best category. Meh.

In the scale of things, it is relatively small potatoes, even though it is at times painful and miserable. I've had worse.

Despite the shitty foot, I still feel a bit better otherwise. I think my sleep is much better now, I seem to finally be getting some actual decent rest - I am less prone to flake out on waking, I feel a little bit more energetic, albeit it is consumed with a shitty foot and hobbling around. I am hoping that the gout clears up and I continue to feel better. Maybe. Possibly. It could also be that I am leaning hard into just resting, doing very little, sleeping all the hours whenever I want. All I can say is I haven't felt this well rested in years.

We shall see.