After engorging on some steaks and drinking nearly 2 gallons of sweet tea last weekend, I woke up to a limp on Monday morning. Thought nothing of it, went to work with a limp and ended the day.
That night and into Tuesday morning I had the absolute most excruciating pain in my life on my right toe. It was as if someone smashed it with a hammer and was dipping it in and out of lava.
I email my team at work and tell them I need to work from home because I can’t drive, and they all urge me to go to the Urgent Care, so I do, reluctantly.
So I go to Kaiser in Irvine, only to have the door say the Urgent Care wasn’t in Irvine, but in Mission Viejo. Do you know how long of a drive from Irvine to Mission Viejo is? They are next-door neighbors, but with a toe that’s being dipped in lava, it might as well have been to South America.
I eventually get to the Kaiser in Mission Viejo and hobble in. I sign in and patiently wait my turn to be called. 20 minutes later I hear someone calling my name, very faint. “Oh shit, I’m in the wrong waiting area”.. I hear my name again. I’m trying to move faster before they turn around and close the door, I’m doing everything I can to stop myself from just 1 leg jumping to them. I get around the corner and waive my hands up, thinking “please dear God don’t go back in” I hobble over and the nurse says “That looks like a gout hobble”.. I managed to let out a giggle and said “Yeah it hurts”.. In reality, I wanted to say “My fucking toe is on fire and it’s the worst pain in my life, it’s a 20 out of 10 and all I want you to do is amputate it please.”
So after that initial call, I’m back in the correct waiting area this time. Toe on fire still, but hey, at least they took my blood pressure which was high, and now I’m on bp meds. They call my name again after another 20 minutes. Yay, I get to go wait in a room. Eventually, the physician walked in after what felt like an eternity, in reality, it was about 45 minutes. He grabs my food and lightly presses on my toe and pain shoots up into my brain and all I want to do is cuss him out, but I don’t.
They prescribed me Meloxicam, Clochistine, and Prednisone(in case the Meloxicam doesn’t work). Needless to say, if you get gout, GO GET THESE MEDS. The throbbing pain almost immediately went away, and then just some lingering soreness. Had I not done anything(like I was planning), this may have lasted a week or longer!