On Friday (after a minor household emergency) I noticed a pain in the main
joint of my left big toe.  Saturday I could move despite the pain, but Sunday
it began to hurt like a stab would  on the side of the joint. It responded to
ibuprofen but not always. It tends to  be better when I am sitting than lying
or  standing.  I  want  to believe  I somehow  banged  my toe.   But what  is
distressing is the pain  won't go away - now it feels  like the foot is being
shattered when I  walk.  Wednesday and Thursday I  had taken multi-mile walks
which  now  are more  monthly  than daily.   More  generally  I begun  having
week-long left foot pain ten years ago in my mid thirties.  When I was twenty
I had a hairline  fracture below my little toe but it  healed before it could
get a  cast and  I was  warned it  would hurt when  I got  older.  In  my mid
thirties I had  returned to bicycling after a ten year  absence, though I did
take multi-mile walks and I was then below my recommended weight.  About five
years ago as I  was rapidly gaining weight (now 80 obese)  as my parents were
dying I was  told it was plantar fascitis (by a  bioengineering colleague - a
Nuero/MRI professor)  and I  found relief by  walking over some  small rubber
balls I picked up at a medical device trade show, which seemed to confirm his
diagnosis.   I  have not  been  bicycling for  the  past  three years.   More
recently someone suggested  gout and during two bouts the  past winter I also
had shortness of  breath which suggested gout.  For about  seven years I have
been taking  ibuprofen, sometimes  abusively, to deal  with a  tensed-up left
sternocleidomastoid (which otherwise knocks me out).