Paging through the New York Times a couple of weeks ago, I spotted the obituary for Tsai-Fan Yu, the physician who developed effective treatments for gout, including al­lop­uri­nol and colchicine.

I take al­lop­uri­nol every day, topping up with colchicine when I feel gouty, so I owe her a great debt of gratitude.

I blogged before about my gout. (Indeed, this is why I put up the mega repost yesterday of my old EraBlog posts, to make my gout post available before writing this one.)

Nothing has changed, for better or for worse, regarding my gout. I take al­lop­uri­nol every day and expect to do so for the rest of my life, unless …continue.

(Originally posted to Personal at EraBlog on Sat, 11 Oct 2003 18:15:39 GMT)

I have gout. It's an unpleasant form of arthritis. Once or twice a year, one of my lower joints will swell up overnight. Usually, it's struck one of my knees, though the last few attacks have all been in my feet. The knee attacks have all been extremely painful initially and I've required pre­scrip­tion painkillers to get to sleep at night. Just bending my knee a few degrees is enough to make me break out in a cold sweat. For­tu­nate­ly, after a few days, the pain decreases to the point where it's annoying but tolerable.

Oddly, the feet …continue.