Gout-Standing Achievements

This month Olly Mann comes to terms with a surprising diagnosis

- Olly Mann

THERE’S ONLY ONE health story in town, of course, and that’s my ongoing foot injury. I can’t imagine how you’ve survived the whole month since my last column without (at the very least) a press conference about it. You must be on the edge of your seats! Will Olly’s tendonitis have retreated?, you discuss over dinner. Or will his swelling have increased?

Well, prepare yourself for a curve ball, because guess what—that nasty red hump under my big toe wasn’t tendonitis at all, but gout. Gout! I know, shocking news. Pour yourself a stiff drink to recover! (Or don’t, if you’re susceptible to gout. Which you might be. I didn’t think I was. But after six weeks of waiting for a foot X-Ray on the NHS, I buckled and consulted a private GP, who diagnosed it in an instant).

In as much as I had ever considered the condition, I had imagined that gout was strictly for portly Victorian gentlemen with sideburns, or blokes in shell-suits who subsist solely on beer and crisps. But then the doc scribbled down a list of trigger foods, and suddenly the diagnosis didn’t seem so unlikely.