COUQURING GOUT ARTHRITIS 2

Thanks for following these articles about my personal experience with gout arthritis, and I hope at the end you will find wisdom that will somehow help you cure this sickness.

I began noticing my gout arthritis attack on my 20’s onward, at first I was so ignorant about it and doesn’t even know that it was gout, but when it frequently gets on the way, specially when I’m on my late 30’s then I began to made some researching to understand and learn about my thorn of the flesh which is gout.

I was the sixth sibling among 8 children and I was the one who got the first sign of inherited gout related sickness, later on my other brothers seems to have also as they share the same symptoms that happened to me. By family health history I found out that my grandmother had this sickness, I don’t know back then back when she was still alive because I’m frequently visiting my grandma’s home and oftentimes she was sick and in pain of not known thing from me, she died in old age bearing the pain, able to bear the excruciating pain I can imagine.

My dad was the first born among the sixth children, and by his young age he learns the craft of being a farmer helping my grandfather on farm works. He barely finish his 4rth grade then give himself thoroughly on farming until she met my mom and got married and there they made 8 children wherein I am the sixth. I was on my teenage years when I began to notice my dad’s painful ordeal about his sickness unknown to me those days, in my toddler’s years we used to jump and play and sometimes accidentally step or touch his aching feet and oh! If only I knew then how painful it is I will understand why we need to be shouted to stop playing around near my dad whenever he is sick.

He was on his 70’s when the thing oppressed him badly and for years he barely walk and oftentimes bed ridden with red swollen feet and knees, at this point of time I understand the pain he suffers and I cant stand the sight, oftentimes he find relief for taking pain relief like diclofenac . But my dad is a meat lover and he really likes fried liver and he won’t eat without one, so that make things more worse for his gout.

Later on he develop psoriasis arthritis and his skin began to develop scales like dandruff and its falling like ashes on his bed and its very itchy. His psoriasis covers all his skin from toe to head and he scratches his body all day and all night and sleeping is a relief from the burning sensation of itchiness of psoriasis but oftentimes waking up asking my mom to scratch his back. I used to see the falling scales from my dad and I was shocked of it, his skin scales off and falling whenever scratches and the sight of it is horrible. The sight of falling scaled skin are all over my dads bed, then ants came, I mean many ants and they feast on those scaled skin that have fallen from my dad, oh! I was shocked to death by the sight of it. then we have to move my dads bed to another corner to get rid of the ants but later on found their way again to the falling scales from my dad, and now they used to climb up unto my dads bed and bite on his scaled peeling skin and mind its horrible and I really have felt pity on my dad. Then we used to put my dads bed foot on canister with water to keep ants from accessing my dads bed and that helps the problem from the ants that feeds on my dads skin, but they keep on taking the fallen skin that have fallen from my dads bed to the ground and when given a chance they climb still on my dads and bit on my dad.

We often rushed him to hospital, especially when my dad’s health fails, and later before he died he began to loose his appetite in eating and oftentimes won’t eat. I was on his bed the day he died, and I was there scratching his back for some relief of all the pain and itchiness he had felt because of these sicknesses.

My dad died in August 7, 2006 he died in search for some relief of the pain he have felt, he died with a wish that the pain he felt and the sickness he suffers shall end with him and that nobody will suffer the same. I wish that too but that will remain a wish because we are living in a world of pain and each individual and person have within him the curse of sickness that we inherited as a man.

But I believed we can do something about it, I know relief is also within us and if we only know how, then we will find the freedom away from all the pain and sickness and enjoy life at the fullest.

learn more of my articles at http://www.arnoldream.blogspot.com

HOW TO CONQUER GOUT ARTHRITIS

I wake up in the middle of the night which is very unusual for me whenever I am sleeping. On that day I have felt a little bit of pain around my toe which I presumed that the pain was due to the reason that arises whenever you accidentally stumbled or have hit some rock or wood when walking. But that night the pain around my toe are getting worse and painful as hour passes by, that at the middle of the night I have to wake up because of unbearable pain which I have never felt before in all my life. I was on my 20’s at that time and I can’t forget how I cried because of that unexplained pain that have oppressed me that day.

The night seems so long for me at that situation and God knows how I wish for the daybreak to come and find some relief of the intense pain I suffered the whole night. At last morning had come and the hope of relief seems so near. I walk limping and I hardly staggered for my way to a known person whom I have known to cure some bones dislocation and sprains near our place.

I can’t figure it out how do I look or how my facial expression looks at that time, but when I finally reach the healers house I thought relief was on the way. I told the lady about my toe and all the pain I felt, oh! Mind you it was a terrible pain, so she also presumed that maybe I have a dislocated joints that makes the burning inflammation around my toe, so she hold my toe and twist it and turn it and pull it oh! I almost collapsed because of the excruciating pain that turning and twisting and pulling have caused me, I thought that pain will never end and it almost killed me and if dying would be painful like that, I will tell you I don’t want to die and feel that pain again.

At last I overcame that ordeal, and I cursed that placed to never be back again, the pain I have after that healing session seems doubled rather that to eased up, and I went home so sad and hurt knowing not what to do because of my aching inflamed toe.

I don’t know how it heals then but it takes a week for it to subsides, unfortunately physician or doctors are far from our place and going to them will be so costly and being on a poor family the money to pay the doctor if there is any will rather be spend for the food and nothing more.

That thing never came back again for I think a year or so, I thought it will never be back but I was wrong for it attacks me at least once a year, and the pain, that excruciating pain have torment me again and again.

At last I found the culprits and know about my thorn of the flesh, it was actually in me, a part of me, something which I inherited from my biological father who also doesn’t know either their sickness because of lack of education and information and of not consulting to physicians and doctors. I have gout arthritis and I got it from my father genes that he inherited also from my grandmother who has suffered severely of gout arthritis not even tasting a relief of pain before she dies.

I’m so very ignorant at that time about this kind of sickness and because it seldom attack me I carelessly ignore about it, but these have cost me a lot of troubles and even have lost my dad later who had died last August 7 2006, who was tormented by these arthritis unto his death. And I will try with all my best and of the information and knowledge I have acquired to write these articles for you my friend out there to serve as a great help and somehow a guide if you or your loved one’s or friend do have these kind of sickness.

So please bear with me and follow my blogs for you to learn something out from my own experience and what I have did to eased up and conquer my thorn of the flesh. And surely I will bare all my secrets about this issue….

arnoldream

you can visit my other articles at http:www.arnold-m.blogspot.com

DAD, I MISS YOU

The red and the orange color of the horizon is getting deeper as the sun hides on its nest in the west, the blueness of the sky is fading and the once mighty ray of the sun finally surrender to the cloud as it kneel to kiss the ground, then all we can see as he goes down are his reflections and then finally gone...
Its getting dark. soon the face of a tired old man who came from his work tilling his field, working endlessly from early morning till sun down as long his eyes can see, will finally get home. the smell of what he wear is a smell of his sweat, burned and dried by the sun, the palm of his feet bared from his childhood has become cracked and thicker with calluses which protects him from small thorns and sharp stones. His arm is like a rock and though his muscles are not big they evolved into a mighty machine skillfully doing right his work. As he wash his hands the color of the water turn dark from the mud which are stuck on his nails and lines of his palm, then without a towel he will dry them to a shirt he wore before. Being tired from work, the only thing he will do to clean up is to wash his face and his done. Then when supper is serving, there he smiles just like a kid given a lollipop. He never complain what’s on the table, a rice with a piece of dried fish there he was contented, lucky for him if he has one ,because having a big family means many mouth to fill in and he makes it that before he takes a bite everybody has his share...and this is my dad.
I have known him since I was a kid, his dedication to his work is without question, from dawn to sunset everyday without a day off or a holiday, he works tilling the field, planting crops, herding his carabao which are his main servants and workmate in almost every work he was doing in the farm. He works relentlessly under the heat of the sun or under the cold shower of the rain, minding not if he will got sick just to make it sure that he will have a harvest as days will past by. Then after days and months of hard labor, then the much awaited harvest came, the once punishing sight of man and animals tilling the ground will turn into a joy of harvest time, this is the time where many friends and neighbors will come to have some little share, and my dad is so generous to give a share. This is the time when all the painstaking days of work and the days of almost having no food to eat is over and will not be remembered and all what you can see on every faces and eyes are joy and assurance that for many days there will be food enough for us, but for my dad you will see on him the joy and the fulfillment of reaping his good labor and the worries and the pain of seeing your family barely eat well is somehow being relieved at least for the meantime.

The routine of this hard work which he bears since he was a kid is like the pattern of the sun that keeps on going each day. As my old folks tells me about how my dad ends up with this kind of life, the bold fact of poverty enters as his very reason why he never finish even the elementary grades. At an early age he was exposed to farm works helping my grand folks do the work in the field preparing the field to plant rice and sugarcane, he spends his early years molded and shaped to do this peasant job, knowing everything through the guided eyes of my grandfather. I know how expert he was and I admire him very much, even though as my perspective and reason is concern I don’t like ending up being a farmer like him.

You know being a farmer in the Philippines is not as lucrative and promising as it was in other country like America or Europe where government support and subsidies flows for their farmers. Being a farmer here is different especially if you do not own the land you till. Ever since farmers are using the old ways of farming with the help of their domesticated animals like the water Buffalo or carabao as we call it. Only can afford land owners have the access the used of farm machineries, lucky for you if you can afford one. As for my dad being a tenant, he will rather wake up and work early to save the money instead of renting these machines. Therefore using the money instead for our food and other expenses, I just can’t remember how many times we eat a decent meal, how many times we skip breakfast or lunch or dinner because we have no money to buy food, and many times we have resort to an antiquated innovated lamp to have lights at nights because our electric service was cut off for months of not paying the bill. This is our life realities which I experience since childhood.

We are ten in the family, my parent and their eight children, I was the sixth among them, and no one also among my elder brothers and sister have finished school ending up in the field work also, when I was a kid probably seven or eight years old back then as I remember I began helping them doing the same, particularly in taking care of the animals, and I can’t forget how many times I fell right from the back of the carabao I am riding while feeding them in the grassy field or on our way back home, I got also some marks right beside my eyes next to my eyebrows a remembrance which I will never forget in all my life when I was accidentally hit by the horns by the carabao, it’s like being box by Tyson and you got knockdown. I wake up my face bleeding and kind a drowsy from the hit, the next thing I know my dad is putting some herbal leaves on my cut and it’s painful.

My dad is a kind of an ignoring or never cares attitude type of person if you make a shallow impression on him; this is how I see him when I was at high school and in college. I just don’t understand back then how hard life really is for them at that point in time. Many times I got this feeling of resentment to him of not being able to give us at least a life much better than we were back then, many times I walk my way to school more than five kilometers away and go home doing the same. I can’t hide my envy specially when I see my classmates have this and have that, I oftentimes walk off from them at recess time seeing them eating their snacks and I don’t. And mind you I can’t remember in high school if my mom bought me a nice brand new white t-shirt as my uniform, I always end up having t-shirt given by somebody, lucky for me if I have a pair of shoes, shirts and pants. I remember onetime during my second year in high school, I was walking along the hall when one of my shoe sole fell off exposing the sole and fingers of my feet, such an embarrassment I will never forget, then I step on that sole dragging it as I walk my way, out from the school.

I was in my third year in college braving this poverty hoping that one day I will graduate and finally land a good job, when unfortunately the never heard Mt. Pinatubo volcano erupts. The farm my dad is tilling was covered and destroyed by flowing pyroclastic destroying everything my dad has done, our house was not spared along with the whole community houses and even takes several neighbors we have known, that up this time their remains is still lying buried in millions tons of sand and rocks that covered our place for nearly thirty years since the incident in the year 1991, such a horrible nightmare.

The after effect of the eruption was strenuously felt by everyone, houses, I mean big and good houses were destroyed, the only investment of those people working in Clark Air Base, the famous big American base in Asia, build from their separation pay when American forces was obliged to leave because of the eruption and the ending of the contract of these bases in the Philippine government. And now Americans are gone so the works and money are gone also, I saw how hard life is, here in Pampanga during this crucial transition, many resort to looting inside the abandon base and many resort to flesh trade as you call it for sexual business.

I was obliged to quit my college and find work to help again the family in this time of need. I know how it is for my dad and how it really affects him is the thing I never ask him because even he will not tell it, at my age I understand now more the facts of life, and I am so sorry for my Dad. Things and time then began to take its mark on my father, as he gets old he began to show the symptoms of what he should reap for along time of exposure to the elements of nature. He became sickly, bedridden for week or more because of inflammation of his feet due to arthritis, he has to be given a pain reliever to ease the excruciating pain he is now suffering. He develops a case of hypertension, gout problems and all the side effect and complication of these cases. His skin became scaly due to schirosis which makes him itchy all the time, he used to scratch and do scratch again and again to feel the ease, but left unchecked it will turn to red and then blister which makes him smell unpleasant.

At the year 2006 just before his death, they manage to be with me along with my new family in our house. I was so happy that in the little way that I can at least I can payback the things my good old Dad has done for me. I am quite a funny guy and knowing that my dad likes to speak English I always speak with him with that language, and he appreciate it, I know coz I make him laugh so loud and put a smile on his face. He likes meat and liver very much, so often times I serve him that, knowing that it aggravates his gout arthritis but we can’t do nothing about it, he always ask for meat or he will not eat otherwise.

Just before the day of his departure, my elder brother managed to convince him to stay in his house, that day is a sad day for me because I know the day my dad will leave my house at that condition there’s no more days left for him, and as they carry him, for now he cannot walk, the pain of loosing my Dad crept inside my heart and I can’t help it but cry, I cried like I have never did before, remembering so much about his memory that I will never, never forget as long as I live.

My dad died on August 7, 2006 at my brothers house due to old age and of his sickness, he was 78 years old when he died, the doctor declared his cause of death as cardiac arrest, he slept quietly just like when he slept when he was a baby, but now he will not ask for milk, he will not call my mom to scratch his back and take away ants biting his flaking skin, there is no more pain to bear, no problems to be bothered with, no more tears for hurt feelings, for the mighty sun has gone to his nest, and the ray of his light rarely seen in the sky, the dark clouds covers him as he kiss the ground…and all you can see are his reflections and then…gone. Farewell sun, farewell Dad and thank you… and Dad I really miss you!





I write this blog in memory of my Dad, Mr. Arsenio Maglalang who passed away on August 7, 2006…again thank you



arnoldream@yahoo.com