It started as a barely detectable soreness. After a Brazilian jiu-jitsu class in April 2018, I felt a nagging stiffness in my left big toe. This is normal after 90 minutes of grappling with other sweaty dudes, so I naturally brushed off the pain as standard bodily wear and tear.
Except it wasn’t.
If the faint soreness was the gentle crackle of a fireplace, then the pain soon gave way to a giant wildfire sparked by kerosene and napalm. A few hours after getting home, the rhythmic throbbing in my toe was too intense to sleep. Putting on a sock was suddenly an agonizing task. Walking to the bathroom was out of the question.
Bereft of solutions in the early hours of the morning, I called my mom. Owing to her perceptiveness, she took a guess as to what was ailing me: “Maybe you have gout?” she said.
Sporting zombie eyes and a grimace the next day, I took a Lyft two blocks to the podiatrist’s office, where I received a fistful of medication to quell the attack and a blunt reality check. Mom was right; I had gout.
Even for a former college athlete and…
