[sfem]

Unfortunately it still persisted on and off. I went to the doctor and he was telling me that I wasn't hydrated enough. That I wasn't drinking enough water and that was causing an accumulation of uric acid in my joints. Sure enough, took a month or so, but as I started making sure that I was drinking more and more water the pain finally went away. So I try now to make a conscious effort to have a glass of water at my desk and actually drink it. Just some food for thought.

I was diagnosed with gout 15 years ago and corrected my uric acid problems with diet changes, my previously poor diet having been the primary cause of my uric acid buildup. That pain was in the big toes almost exclusively, and is a quite different pain from what I get these days. I have been free of gout pain and my blood tests show no residual gout and I have been gout free for almost 10 years. The gout pain was in the joints. This pain is circulatory in nature, involving swelling of the soft tissues and pins and needles type pain in the extremeties of my toes. It also involves swelling of the balls of my feet and significant sensitivity to any pressure on the ball of the foot, can't even wear socks when it is bad. If I were forced to guess, I would guess that the PM has effects on blood vessels that aggravates whatever is wrong with my feet.