Injured foot means no cycling (or walking)

I'm trying to work out how I damaged my foot and whether, perhaps, it had something to do with our recent ride up Titsey Hill. I don't think so, somehow. Either way I'm completely out of action, not only cycling but generally. I'm not in any pain. Right now, as I pen this post. there's no pain at all, in fact, give or take, there never has been. I feared gout, but over the weekend, when I took a trip down to Croydoc, the GP on duty there told me that if I had gout I'd be in total agony. I knew this because a pal of mine had gout and he said the pain was unbearable. I'm glad it's not gout as I didn't fancy having to give up drinking red wine or eating a nice Indian meal. But if it's not gout, what is it?

Walk like a pirate!

The symptoms are a swollen foot, just under the big toe and running down the left side of my right foot. There is definite swelling and discolouring and I'm limping about. It hurts when I walk, but otherwise, no pain. The GP told me to take Nurofen for a couple of days and get the inflammation down, which seems to be working, but it's still bad news when I start walking. I'm not joking, but I literally limp around like some kind of old man, it's horrible. I almost drag my right leg around like some kind of old pirate. It doesn't look good.

The whole thing started just under a week ago and I'm looking at excessive walking in the wrong shoes as the cause. Although even my self-diagnosis might be wrong. The reason I think it might be walking in the wrong shoes is that I am tending to walk, on average, about an hour to an hour and a half every day. I walk for 30 minutes from the office to the station. I walk, in total, around 20 minutes to and from my house to our local station and then, during my lunch break at work, I might walk another 30 minutes. What's that add up to? That's 80 minutes. Or one hour and 20 minutes walking in a pair of Doctor Martens. Good shoes and I've never been injured by walking in the past.

Earlier on in the month, something similar, but not as severe, happened to my left foot, leaving me, late one night, hobbling over Kew Bridge in the cold, but that ailment - which I also blamed on excessive walking in the wrong shoes – came and went. This latest bout of foot trouble hasn't gone away. It started, I think, on Tuesday or maybe Wednesday last week. I was getting an ache in my foot and it kept me awake and from then to now, I've been hobbling about. I decided to do something about it on Saturday and that's why I'm on the old Nurofen. I'll give it a couple more days and then I'll visit my own GP.

I reckon I could cycle with this problem, but we'll see. To be honest, I thought I could drive with it, until I tried putting my foot on the brake! Ooops! Although I am driving. I've just got to put my foot down a little more forcefully without sending everybody through the windscreen.

Anyway, it's now 10.30pm on Monday 27th February. Time for bed. I'm hoping things will be a little more improved in the morning. Until then, sleep tight everybody.