Just a final update to this thread in case anyone searches the forum for gout and finds this.

It's been a week now since I started attacking the gout from a hydration standpoint. I also read about pseudoogout but I am pretty sure the attack I had was gout and not pseudogout because of the location.

Regardless of which condition it was, I would suggest anyone who has such an attack consider that dehydration may be playing a roll. My pain was getting consistently worse and worse until I re-hydrated and the results were almost immediate. After just 24 hours the pain was reduced to "bearable" and now I can't even feel it anymore... (Well maybe just "barely" if I hold my toe a certain way when I wiggle it...)

I slept well, like a baby, all night last night from 10pm to 5am and woke up and peed and peed and peed... (had to pee like a racehorse as the old saying goes). I have stuck to my eating plan and the scale afterwards says I am down a pound so far for the week so my weight loss is back on track and I'm well hydrated.