Gouty arthritis – what you eat, who you are, or somewhere in between?
Ties That Bind, an artwork depicting gout by Marion Wassenaar, detail, 2017, mixed media. Published in Junctures: The Journal for Thematic Dialogue. No 18 (2017). CC BY-NC 3.0 NZ.
What do most people think of when they hear the word gout? I used to think of a pain that old, fat, white men from the olden days suffered from. But I was wrong. Yes, gout is painful. If you have a gout attack or flare-up you will suffer pain “that feels like a thousand needles stabbing you all at once”. But it can affect anyone, of any age and any ancestry, and it’s still a problem now.
