No! No! No! (I said it three times.) For gout, a lot of things that are usually healthy… aren’t. Fish and lean meat break down into more of the stuff that crystallises – and fruit and fruit juices raise the body’s acidity which both encourages the other stuff to crystallise out and crowds out the kidneys’ capacity to get rid of it the conventional way. Speaking of which, for real suffering just wait until you get kidney stones, which are what come next once stuff starts crystallising out faster than it can be flushed. It’s nearly worse than the worst of my migraines and better than those that don’t settle on the head, plus they last longer, I can tell you.

Apart from not jolting it, there’s really only one sensible thing for gout, which gives you prevention of later attacks and helps clear up the current one: shift the crystallising balance the other way. Keep the affected parts warm, drink lots of non-acid, non-alcohol fluid to help flush it out (alcohol crowds out the kidneys’ job, as before), and stay on a low protein, low fat diet (again, to cut down on producing the muck and to avoid the fat breakdown products crowding out the flushing). With that, my own attacks have got progressively milder and less frequent – so far.

P.S., the Irish Times is a fine bar here in Melbourne.

Now I have had several more boils? The first one i got on my butt, in my taint, 2 days after the hernia surgery. WTF? A gift of the returning Iraqi veterans, rumor has it. Thanks imperial america, what next? Leishmaniasis?

Gout and boils? Am I some sorta dickens character?

By the way, the gout on my big toe was at the base of the toe, on the outside, big and red and hard and painful as helllll. That toe you posted looked like some sorta of vietnam foot fungus my dad had (thanks imperial america). Prop it up.

Dr Dolan, I don’t wish you success, a tenure, a golden retriever, and a gated community where you’d learn to appreciate golf. What an incalculable loss that’d be. You understand – surely you of all people understand – the importance of misery for a writer.

I’m not the only person who would send you money if there were some available means. Surely you can get a paypal button on here?

Best wishes to you and your wife.