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by jerlam
409 days ago
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I wonder if the medical textbooks only mention gout as a historical curiosity and not as a modern day disease. I have an older relative with gout, have met someone in their 30s with gout, and yesterday heard a story about an acquaintance with gout, so it's not that rare anymore. |
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> The global gout prevalent cases in individuals aged 15–39 years was 5.21 million in 2019, with the annual incidence substantially increasing from 38.71 to 45.94 per 100 000 population during 1990–2019
So while marginal, it is either getting more prevalent for younger men over the last 30 years, or we are getting better at catching it.
What's interesting is all of the older men I've met with gout describe moderately uncomfortable pains, I was surprised to learn that my case is exceptionally intense, debilitating enough to be a physical handicap at times (along with sciatica, fused discs, flat feet, some other little things and possible fibromyalgia) which has plagued my life since I was in my teens.
It's been a horrendous disease that has greatly impacted my ability to be as active as I'd like, and sometimes during a flare-up it's extremely difficult just to walk to my bathroom. Flare ups sometimes happen constantly and sometimes I get a month or two of reduced symptoms.
Another thing is that I don't eat meat, and I rarely drink, which are the two biggest aggravators of symptoms. When the doc told me I needed to cut those things out I laughed, and they said they were very surprised that my symptoms were so bad given that I already avoid the most offensive foods.
I'm also currently trying to pin down another autoimmune disease. From what I know, I don't speak to him, but my father has been in and out of the hospital his whole life and it took decades to pin it down as lupus. I am wondering if he lacked the butterfly rash because I don't have one, but otherwise have basically every symptom of lupus, but it also could be fibromyalgia or even MS. Combined with the gout though, I feel 40 years older than I am, almost every little tissue and bone and muscle hurts from head to toe (literally toe, gout keeps one of my toes at a constant level of pain).
[0] https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10152042/