Cheers gents. I'm off to see the health care centre people shortly (having been told to go there by my GP surgery, who I was directed to after doing 111 online. I have a book, and iPOD and some water. What did Captain Oats say?Agreed on this.
Feel free to DM away, @Harry Wilson's tackle
As @Albion in the north says, a gout attack can be months, even years in the making. The thing I actually found quite useful after my first attack is that I'd sometimes get twinges in my toe as a kind of warning sign, and sometimes at that point it was too late to stave off an attack, but sometimes it wasn't - I would see my big toe as a little Jiminy Cricket, reminding me to stay on the straight and narrow.