It’s Flu Shot Season, they tell us. Every season. Something about that doesn’t make sense. Aren’t vaccines supposed to prevent you getting the flu? What good is a vaccine that you have to keep on taking?
Maybe it’d be smarter to just stay healthy. 
That thought occurred to me during my recent bout with gout – which is something you do not want to get. It is an excruciatingly painful and crippling swelling of joints into which uric acid has crystalized because there was too much uric acid in your blood and your body could not pee it out or otherwise get rid of it fast enough. So it gets dumped into certain joints – the big toe and foot generally being the most common – much the same as you’d sweep a bunch of dirt under the rug because the vacuum cleaner’s broken. The result is almost immediate incapacitation. Your toe/foot is much too painful to try to walk on it. It swells alarmingly; you become Bigfoot over the course of just one night (the gout seems to always hit at night). Your shoes no longer fit and even if they did you could not wear them because anything touching them will make you yelp with pain.
There are a number of supposed contributing factors that lead to gout such as eating too much of the wrong food and being too heavy. Guilty as charged. Over the past three years, I went from my normal 200-2005 to 230-plus. I told myself this was ok because I was lifting heavy and acquiring a belly along the way is common when guys do that. I also told myself it was ok to eat pretty much anything I like and I really like bad food that tastes good, such as Chinese and fast food. I went to town. Then the town followed me home.
For two weeks I experienced what it’s like to be afflicted with something life-altering. I could just barely hobble around, like a peg-legged pirate. At the gym, a guy I know who is a doctor asked me what I’d done, assuming I’d broken or twisted my ankle. I showed him my foot and told him about the sudden onset, no injury involved. He told me to go to see a doctor and get a script for a drug called Allopurinol – which you take for life.
I decided to change the way I live my life. As I type this, I am down more than ten pounds, to about 2019 and already feeling much healthier. I have not eaten one bite of the kind of food I used to eat for three weeks. No more processed foods or fast foods of any kind and no sugared anything. I am hoping to be close to 200 pounds again by the end of the month and that plus a healthy diet will, I hope, put gout as far in the rearview as my gut.
But why is it that doctors rarely (if ever) recommend getting healthy rather than getting a shot or taking a pill (sometimes, forever)? Perhaps it is their reflexive training coming online. Allopathic medicine is chiefly about symptom management rather than curing the underlying problem that is causing the sickness. This is part of the problem. The other part is many people do not want to be healthy; they just want the doctor to treat whatever their symptoms are. They don’t want to told they’re obese or that they have stop drinking soda with every fast food meal. The drive-thru and microwave are easy and that’s tempting. I know all about it. 
I also know, though, that I’d rather be healthy.
I recently caught what was probably one of the new variants of “COVID” – or maybe it was just a seasonal cold. I let my body deal with it and now I’m fine. Just as I’m going to be fine as far as the gout once my gut (already much smaller) is gone.
Sometimes it takes a Come to Jesus moment. I had mine three weeks ago and thank God for it, because if hadn’t been for the gout I probably would have eaten myself into obesity and a heart attack. Instead, I’ll back to normal in another few weeks at the most.
So thank you, Mr. Gout – wherever you are!
. . .
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My late cousin never accepted being obese was the cause of most of his many health problems. He did absolutely nothing to loose some of the weight, always looking for the quick fix that doesn’t exist. Even denied being overweight!!
He was basically completely disabled at the end of his life, which ended about 3 days after his 65th birthday. Ironically enough, the government had denied all of his benefits that he thought he had earned by working hard at trucking his whole life.
Ended up dying of a massive stroke on his mothers sofa in front of his grandsons, who tried to do CPR on him. It’s very hard to CPR on someone that big too.
Accepting you have a problem is the first step, that I think many people never get past.
Glad you are doing better Eric!
Thanks, Rich!
My next weigh-in is this weekend; hoping for 217 (maybe 2015). If I succeed, I’ll be only about ten pounds heavier than I was pre-COVID (during which I let myself go). I feel a lot better already, having lost 12 pounds from Peak Fatness!
Good job on the weight loss and lifestyle changes. They are hard.
But how did this happen in the first place? Because bad food, created through copious amounts of R&D is everywhere.
It can’t be avoided and it’s not there for our benefit.
Eat as much real food as possible, get exercise, get outside. This will help us all lower the need to become slaves to the pharma plantation.
Welcome to the new police state:
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/shots-reportedly-fired-charlie-kirk-event-utah-valley-university
If Kirk has been assassinated (which personally I believe he probably was) the boot on our neck is about to knock off our circulation. Why? Why do things have to be this way?
It does look real. If this is true, and not some elaborate AI deep fake then [[[they]]] just made it OK for unlimited political assassination on both sides. Everyone should already have a hypothetical list in your local area, hypothetically. Aim small miss small.
Hi Norman,
I think between the killing of the Ukrainian woman in Charlotte, the couple set on fire in NY, and now Kirk being shot gives Trump the excuse he needs to put this country under Marital Law. I can’t help but believe this could be a red flag. Things are about to get ugly.
I hope not. Ive got boat drinks on the river next week. Wish Trump would just stop with captain save-a-ho nonsense. I refuse to give up any more freedoms to rescue Blue Cheka crap holes from their bad decisions. Sad how they’re already making it about consequences of Luigi. One guy was killed for literally talking to people, the other grifted millions$$ and denied claims for thousands of families and individuals. Wouldn’t even be an issue if we had a real justice system. I hope everyone who voted for Trump is happy..
Was Trump elected or selected? If voting doesn’t count does it matter if someone voted for him or not?
I like having a clear conscience and clean hands. Thats a good question though? But the act of voting implies consent with the slavers who run things…So…Sorry I cant help think we would have been better off with a velvet glove running things, not an iron fist. Hopefully the disintegration thats to come will allow for some small spaces of freedom and liberty to flourish.
Marital Law? Is that the law in which husbands who refuse to submit to all of their wife’s demands are subject to severe penalties, up to and including summary execution by a method of their wife’s choice?
Why, yes, yes it is. Good catch my dear. You are my new proofreader. 😀
Hi RG,
I thought that, after such a grim day, I should try to inject a little humor.
Hey Norman,
On the phrase “aim small, miss small”… What in the hell does that mean? I’ve been perplexed ever since Mel Gibson’s character offered that advice in “The Patriot”. Something like “aim for smaller objects and you’ll be more accurate”?
Exactly. Focus on a tiny spot on the target, lees likely to miss the overall target. Although, for someone determined to shoot someone it might mean don’t punch above your weight class.
I see. Thanks, Norman!
Dude,
It’s from the American Sniper Flick…..And quite frankly, I could never figure out the statement???
The US Air Farce used to have an advertisement…AIM HIGH??
In Uncle Sams Misguided Children lingo That means miss .. or..
More accurately “Hitting Maggie’s Drawer’s (white Flag miss) on the Rifle range…..Just saying…
Seems like just about every store I’ve gone into the past few weeks is pushing free flu shots. Enough already. George Carlin nailed the Big Pharma medical complex years ago by pointing out “there’s no money in a cure”.
HiMike,
We just got back from running errands; we counted six Diaper wearers – the most we’ve seen in a year. A memo must have been sent that we did’t get.
Glad to hear the gout is over that sounded awful. I hope the food changes work and you never have another episode of it. I was diagnosed with MS in my 20’s and really struggled with the symptoms for about 10 years. Numbness and tingling of up to half my body at a time and overwhelming fatigue that made it difficult to get through the day at work. My stepmother suggested I join an MS support group. I declined as I hated the idea of my life being defined as an MS patient. Something clicked and I decided enough and began running on the track again like i had done in high school, working up to an hour a day 4- 5 days a week. Immediately lost 15 lbs and began to felt great. MS issues mostly disappeared. A few months later I had what would turn out to be the last appointment with my neurologist. The MRI scan showed the lesions had gotten very small. I told him what I had been doing, as I was thrilled with the results and thought this might be helpful to other MS patients. He was amazed by the MRI results but when I asked if the running program had anything to do with it he said absolutely not. This was a very well respected neurologist who headed up a medical clinic in the bay area, so I was stunned by his dismissiveness.
That was when I made working out my main health focus and never looked back. I still run as fast as I ever did (although I was never what anyone would consider a fast runner) and lift weights in the gym 3 days a week. While working full time.
When flu shots first became a thing is when I started to get actually wary of the health profession. Something about the way they were being suddenly pushed seemed odd and forced. Covid just reinforced all my previous beliefs. Which is if I want to be healthy and fit I need to work hard for it and never stop, even when laziness creeps in. Which definitely is a hazard!
Thanks, Rebecca!
I’m down to 219 and already feeling much better. Ten more and I’ll be within a few pounds of a healthy BMI again and if it costs me some strength, my overall health will be well worth that. Really glad to hear you beat the MS, which just shows it can be done with lifestyle changes – fa better than becoming a client of the medical industry for the rst of your life!
I don’t think it will cost you strength. My trainer is 48, does 2 plus hours of cardio every day and is a natural bodybuilder about to enter another contest.. He runs a lot of spartan races so he’s pretty dang strong. He never took a shot, has never called out, and still has not had covid. Although I realize this person is an outlier and normal people are never going to devote that much time to working out and watching their diet, i find people like him motivating because they are proof it can be done.
RS: I love your story!!!!!!! Congrats on taking control and prospering.
‘This was a very well respected neurologist, so I was stunned by his dismissiveness.’ — RS
Tragically, it seems that most doctors mentally canonize what they were taught in medical school in their early to mid twenties. They become impervious if not openly hostile to new developments, yet easily internalize Big Pharma brainwashing.
Lay people do this too. But in health care, the results can be deadly. As a popular T-shirt slogan urges, Question everything!
Hey RS,
Your neurologist should been *much* more interested in your case than he clearly was. It’s commonly stated by so-called medical experts that you don’t just “get better” when it comes to MS. Remission is possible, but I’ve still never heard of an MS patient being “cured”.
I hope, in your case, that you’ll never again have to experience the horrors of MS. I wish that were true for everyone.
I love running. 80/20 Running (dry and technical, but very informative) and Born to Run are my favorite books to any interested in running. Running has literally saved my life… we were, well, born to do it. Glad to see you are doing better. Keep at it and keep the reaper away.
I also am a fast food addict. The food porn (advertising) does a remarkable job of getting inside your brain and giving you cravings. Not only will your body thank you for getting off it, your wallet will as the average fast food combo which used to be 5 bucks is now around 15. I know my income hasn’t tripled in the last 5 years, in fact its the same. (Im self employed, and the boss is an a$$hole…)
Eric. Please stop blaming yourself. It is a popular myth (and a profitable one especially for the diet and “wellness” industry) that you caused your gout or that not eating “right” and/or gaining weight gave you gout. It’s been known in medical literature for years that it is not caused by our lifestyle. Nothing we do in our lifestyle causes gout. It is genetic and increases with aging. In fact, the genetic component is far more significant than most people imagine.
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41588-024-01921-5
It is an inflammatory form of arthritis, it is not caused by something you did by eating fast food, enjoying a beer or dessert, or anything else!
https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanrhe/article/PIIS2665-9913(19)30036-0/fulltext
Gout is not self-inflicted and it is evil to make people believe it’s their own fault. Blaming people for any chronic disease is popular, cruel and based on myths.
https://gouteducation.org/gout-myths-misconceptions-debunked/
https://scitechdaily.com/groundbreaking-study-shatters-gout-myths-genetics-not-lifestyle-to-blame/
Getting old is not for the faint of heart. We don’t have any choice about getting old, nor can we choose our parents. But we can choose to keep our critical thinking caps on and question everything. And enjoy your life!
Hi Sandy,
We’ll see! I doubt it helped being 20-plus pounds heavy – something I never allowed myself to be until about two-three years ago – or eating what I was eating. Depression and anger got the better of me.
There is apparently this thing called metabolic syndrome and if you develop this, you are likely to develop gout. One of the symptoms of metabolic syndrome is a bulging belly. This is something I never had in the past as I have always been very active. But I really went to town with eating and – voila!
The main thing for me is avoiding having to take drugs and if losing my gut and changing what I eat does that, I’m all in. As of today, I am 219 so down 12 pounds from about a month ago. My gut is receding noticeably. I am hoping to be close to 200 by the end of the month, which is what I was three or so years ago when I could still wear the size 32 pants I wore in high school.
We’ll see whether this works. It’ll be an interesting experiment!
Now that you are clued in to metabolic syndrome, you will spot it instantly and everywhere. Its victims are literally pear-shaped.
Something is terribly wrong when a third or half the population have metabolic syndrome, in total contrast to millennia of human history. WTF happened to us? Is ‘the science’ incapable of solving this social riddle? Or was it directed to solve a different problem, such as ‘recurring revenues from a drug you’ll take for life’?
RFK Jr at least is asking the right questions. America put a man on the moon, but can’t fix endemic poor health? This does not compute.
“America put a man on the moon. . .” Not so sure about this one. To borrow your T-shirt slogan above, Question everything!
Yes, indeed. Question everything and go to original source evidence. Metabolic syndrome, just like obesity, is big business for pharma. 99% of what we hear in media is marketing. (Definitions and markers have also conveniently changed to increase #s labeled abnormal and in need of a pill.) Pot bellies are mostly associated with aging, stress and our genetics, but itself is nothing to fear. Look at family pictures of generations and we all will look like our grandparents when we get older.
https://junkfoodscience.blogspot.com/2009/08/myth-of-unhealthy-belly-fat.html
https://junkfoodscience.blogspot.com/2008/06/metabo-is-small-waistline-measure-of.html
Hi Sandy,
I am persuaded – because it seems logical to me – that we all have genetic predispositions to various ailments. But that does not mean we have no control over that. Allopathic medicine wants us to believe that for all the obvious reasons. Here’s a pill. Let’s schedule that procedure. I am persuaded that the actions we take – for good and bad – greatly influence outcomes. We’ll see in my case. If I never have another attack of gout after having gotten back to a healthy weight and stopped eating unhealthy foods, that will be evidence that while I may have a genetic predisposition to gout, I can also prevent it without becoming a client of the medical industrial system!
Following a diabetic diet to minimize sugars & carbs is what a friend did to control his gout. The weight loss was a happy side effect. No drugs needed.
👍 Sugar, even natural sugars such as those found in fruit, absolutely kill our gut bacteria causing parasites and yeast to form disrupting and killing good gut bacteria and not allowing vitamins and minerals to be absorbed into the body. A second trip to a Western Medical Industrial Complex doctor showed a high amount of protein in my urinalysis. The doctor brushed it off…I didn’t. It took 1.5 months finding a homeopathic doctor who took the matter seriously and we begin fixing the damage before any major issues occurred.
So many doctors completely ignore our gut health which is where 85% of disease is formed from. An industry that receives kickbacks, bonuses, and incentives for forcing vaccines and pill popping has no business overseeing the healthcare of individuals via the swearing of the Hippocratic Oath. The WMIC is a joke whose intent is to profit and not cure.
RG,
I completely agree with refined sugar being a primary cause of a modern plague. I don’t believe that fruit in reasonable quantities generally causes a problem due to the fiber being a sort of buffer to sugar absorption, but fruit juice often contains absurd amounts of sugar without that fiber. Too much fruit might, however, cause the wrong types of bacteria and perhaps yeast to thrive in the gut as you’ve stated.
I keep careful track of my diet and recently have had my intestinal flora (ahem) and IgA antibodies quantified and will pay attention to such matters from here on out. Having a naturopathic doctor has been life-changing.
A bit off-topic, but medical related. Those face diapers have a toxic downside: they are now releasing toxic chemicals as they decompose in landfills. Billions of them.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/sep/08/disposable-face-masks-covid-chemical-timebomb
Hi SLH,
There was a story a few years on LOTS of face diapers ending up in oceans, resulting in micro plastics in the ocean. Very few if any people who claim to care about the environment raised a stink over it. I doubt corporate media reported it either. Instead, they, along with mask zealots, were pushing universal mask mandates for all.
I’m glad to hear your gout attack has passed. I’ve had several and they’re incredibly painful. I exercise, I lost the extra weight, and my uric acid levels went from 8 times normal down to 3 times normal, so even after losing weight, I got regular gout attacks. Allopurinol fixes it (thought not everyone can take it).
Glad you’re improving, Eric.
Though I thought this article might be the results of you doing some drugs and giving us your thoughts, which would’ve been insightful and entertaining.
Something like “I saw the wind blowing toward the Sun this morning and figured the Sun was finally pulling the atmosphere off the planet.” Or “It looked like I was low on gas, so I floored the gas pedal in hopes that it would move the needle from ‘E’ to ‘F’.”
Maybe next time.
https://youtu.be/lm8fYf53SMg?si=toOu7DpBR_chOn7H
I think as this man does often, Ernie. 😉 In this world, who could not?
Made me think of this, now I have to watch it again…
https://youtu.be/lm8fYf53SMg?si=toOu7DpBR_chOn7H
My doctor is the same as most. Have you had a flu shot, Covid shot, shingles shot? No and hell no is my reply. I’ve just now caught whatever it is going around at work. I started talking a zinc nasal spray and after a day or two, my symptoms have subsided. But anyway, there is a book everyone should have. That book is called “You, The Owner’s Manual” written by Dr. Michael Roizen & Dr. Oz. It addresses common ailments and natural alternatives to pills. I can testify that it works. I had a cholesterol problem and a doctor wanted to put me on medication for it. I told him no; that I wanted to try another way to do it. The book recommended extra virgin olive oil. One tablespoon a day. Six months later the doctor took my blood sample and it came back with numbers cut in half. He asked me what I did and I told him. His response was shaking his head not wanting to hear it. I guess no prescription, no commission.
Eric, you are lucky that the high uric resulted with gout. A friend of mine has high uric acid and it causes kidney stones with him.
‘[The doctor] asked me what I did [EVOO] and I told him. His response was shaking his head.’ — Allen
A practitioner who actually wanted to help people would have asked you, ‘What brand?‘
His cynical response likely would have ignited a ferocious verbal smackdown from me, which is a rare event.
Then I would have swiped his prescription pad on the way out. 🙂
Jovial Foods organic Italian olive oil….they also sell einkorn flour which is the original ancient wheat….takes a while to master baking with it but good stuff. As to modern doctors…..see if you can find an older doctor who does the concierge thing….the current iteration of the medical profession has become corrupted to the core and avoiding them as much as possible seems like the optimal path to health….ultimately you, as a libertarian, bear responsibility for and ownership of your own body.
Crazy that these “public health” bureaucracies started pushing flu vaccines, particularly when there was a study earlier this year showing that people who took a flu shot were around 27% MORE likely to get the flu than those who DON’T take a flu vaccine. And now they’re also pushing COVID booster jabs despite the fact these jabs have proven NOT to be “Safe and Effective!”, but instead making people MORE likely to get that which they’d purportedly been vaxxed against.
Glad to hear your progress, Eric.
Took the Commander in for the yearly mammogram at the local hospital. EVERYONE was fat, scratch that, OBESE. She and I really keep an eye on the weight and we both could stand to lose 10 to 15 lbs. However, these folks are huuuge! Medical folks know the drill, obese is a ticket to type II diabetes and lots more. Nurses, doctors 60 plus lbs overweight was the norm. I’d say 1 in 20 were OK weight. Sad to see otherwise cuties in their 20s that are already huge what a battle they face if they ever want to get down to a healthy weight.
Sugar of course a problem. One other theory is since even healthy foods lack nutrition since the soils are so depleted that the body mechanism wants more and more food – the body trying to find the lacking nutrients. Thus overeating becomes the norm.
Hey Sparkey. Look into the dangers of mammograms. They ain’t good at all, especially yearly.
One thing I can tell you from observing the vintage car and motorcycle community for decades.
Muricans’ don’t want to understand root cause of mechanical and electrical problems.
Muricans’ don’t want to fix the root cause of their problems. They want a quick Band-aid to mask or hide the symptoms. If they can buy some aftermarket product that promises to solve their problems they will do than 10 times over before they would actually buckle down and solve the underlying problem.
Why would it be any different with their own health?
Glad you are feeling better. I’ve been down the same road. Stopped drinking alcohol, hardly ever eat fast food, or soda pop, drink lots of distilled water, and avoid doctors.
Thanks, Peter!
I’ve given up bad for me food before – but this is the first time I haven’t missed it. That’s a good feeling. I am looking at this as a forever change.
There’s no money in health, sickcare and deathcare would be better terms for this cabal.
It’s not health care. It’s sick care. I worked in a medical device company in finance. Three important metrics: 1. Advertising $’s spent; 2. Patient Attraction; 3. Patient stickiness. Not % of patients cured