Well, after more than a month of thinking I had an old sports injury acting up, it turns out that the recurring effusion in my left knee is gout which, previously unknown to me, is a not uncommon sidekick for people with insulin resistance. I never even realized that you could have gout in your knees and other joints - I thought it was a big toe thing. FWIW, it’s very painful and debilitating (although, as I just posted elsewhere in a different context, it didn’t stop me from lifting my 275 lb mother-in-law off the floor unassisted, while she resisted all my efforts, probably to the detriment of my recovery), so I hope none of you ever experience it. There’s not much more to say about it other than that my diet is now even more restricted than before. Soon I’ll be living on heads of iceberg lettuce and fish tails. Very depressed - here I thought I was a wounded warrior, and it turns out I’m just a fat slob who can’t control his eating. I feel like (former Yankees pitcher) David Wells - no one remembers that he threw a no-hitter as well as they remember that he showed up to spring training over weight and with gout. Someone please just shoot me while I sit here wallowing in my own crapulence.
@Strat1117 don’t beat yourself up to much. Maybe you need to take your Stratocaster out of the case, tune it and play and sing some blues. That always uplifts me.
As to gout and its relationship to diabetes - well another possible diabetes complication, who knew.
The only person I knew with gout was my uncle. He was not diabetic or particularly overweight. He liked beer and food. He never had a beer again and changed his diet completely. He told me that he never wanted to have that pain again. I forget where it struck him, which joint. To compound matters he also developed another arthritis, rheumatoid.
Thanks @CarlosLuis. As you obviously picked up, I’m just engaging in some (hopefully) cathartic self-loathing (something at which I, unfortunately, excel - the self-loathing part, not necessarily the catharsis).
Funny that you mentioned the guitar (and glad to know there’s another picker on the group!). In point of fact, while I didn’t pull out the Strat, I did pull out a new set of strings for my Martin acoustic, with the intention of spending the afternoon working out a simple arrangement of Tom Waits’ ‘Hold On’ - not strictly blues from a musical standpoint, but the sentiment is the same.
I added a link to a short article on the subject in my original post above for anyone who might be interested.