Should have ate an apple yesterday to keep the doctor away.

I woke up at 4am this morning with a horrible pain in my fourth toe on my left foot. Since I had already resolved not to go to school the next day anyway, because life had been tough for me juggling listening in lessons with rushing to the toilet for the past two days, I thought nothing was wrong and it was probably me not lying in a proper sleeping position.

I woke up at 8am to find that now the third toe had also been afflicted and it was in similar/worse pain. Which means that both toes hurt, were red and tender and swollen. Absolutely intolerable. I read about the symptoms on the net, and to my shock it sounded just like symptoms of gout, which is more commonly found in men aged 40 and above. (Gout is a type of arthritis caused by the formation of uric acid crystals at joint areas due to high uric acid levels in the blood. It usually forms near at the toe joints where there is less blood circulation. The crystals then inflame surrounding tissue and cause the area to swell, become tender and become sensitive.)

The bright side was that after taking just one dose of loperamide yesterday, the stomach churning and the diarrhea seems to have stopped. Still, I didn't want to take any risks with my toe because it was still hurting pretty bad, and I went to see the doctor. This time I went to the polyclinic since I'm not going to school, and I would have time to wait.

Reached the polyclinic at 1115 in the morning, and collected my medicines from the pharmacy at 1400. By the time I went in for consultation, my toes no longer hurt, and I had half a mind to just go home. Playing my PSP on the uncomfortable clinic chairs for two hours made my neck ache, and there was no air-conditioning in the clinic. Polyclinic charged about 5 dollars, the private clinic would have charged 25 dollars for about 20 minutes wait. I wonder.

But, I feel better now and I'll be back in school tomorrow (if nothing goes wrong)!