Three Tips on Hiking with Severe Osteoarthritis

© 2012 Peter Free

 

09 April 2012

 

 

I had to come up with these (obvious) ideas to avoid getting myself into jams, while hiking alone

 

Pre-medicate (even if you avoid drugs, as do)

 

Practice varying the length and biomechanics of your stride

 

Use trekking poles, when necessary

 

Sane people will think these obvious.  But I have never been sane in the wilds or arguably anywhere else.   I write what follows for people who are like me and still in partial denial about the effects of aging.

 

 

Background

 

I have always exhibited a rather remarkable inflammatory response to extended use of my musculoskeletal system.  Distance running and hiking always left me afterward painfully dragging myself around like an elderly person.

 

Today, after more than 6 decades, the inflammatory response attacks now severely arthritic joints.  My deteriorated spine also has compromising effects on the spinal cords nerve roots.  Among other things, this leaves me feeling as if my body consists of two poorly connected pieces.

 

My younger person’s dream of staying active enough to be admirably active in old age appears to have backfired.  I am undoubtedly part of large club of similarly situated Boomers.

 

 

Running out of locomoting steam can be dangerous in the “wild”

 

In recent years, I have noticed that it does not take a very long hike to leave me virtually unable to walk back to the car.  Crawling is not a good option because it tends not to cover terrain fast enough to prevent the other ills that come with being out too long.

 

Because I hike solo, often off-trail, and virtually never tell anyone where I am, incapacity can present problems.  Near immobility often arrives more quickly than I had provided for in executing my route plan.

 

It is not a question of toughing it out (which was my favorite way of coping with virtually anything when younger).  As many older people discover, sometimes the body tells you that it is over, at least for now.  All the will in the world is not going to much change that outcome.

 

 

Symptoms to watch for

 

With me, the bone-on-bone grating of a few joints is not the problem.  It’s the shrieking reduction in mobility that the combination of joints and muscle do, when they cooperate to prevent more wear on the body’s important hinges.

 

I find my steps getting shorter and more painful.  Eventually, they degenerate into a painfully constrained series of muscular winces.  These tottering steps cope poorly with flat terrain, almost not at all with steep down-hills, and always badly with the distance yet to be done.

 

 

What to do?

 

Pre-medicate

Vary stride length and biomechanics

Use poles

 

 

Anti-inflammatory medications

 

For me, pre-medicating with non-steroidal anti-inflammatory medications helps.  It extends my range about two-fold.  And it also slows the decline into inflamed immobility, leaving me just enough error room not to get caught in bad situations.

 

Ordinarily, I stay away from these drugs, due to their negative cardiac and gastrointestinal effects.  However, if I am to stay active in the mountains, I have accepted that I have no choice but to use them.

 

In my case, I take a dose 60 to 90 minutes before a hike.  Another, five to six hours into the hike (or just after).  And a third before bed.  That is the minimum that I can get away with.

 

 

Occasionally varying striding pattern

 

I found that I arthritis tends to shorten my steps, especially going downhill or over convoluted terrain.  The shortening quickly becomes reinforcing.  Eventually, I’m toddling along like a hundred-year old without a walker.

 

I can partially overcome this by taking longer than average strides up and downhill and on the flat.  This is a kind evils-balancing solution because something else is going to start hurting in the process.  But, overall, the varied walking technique seems to keep me ambling farther and faster.

 

I also exaggerate the biomechanics of these lengthened steps.  For example, going downhill, I extend far enough forward to be in a semi-lunge position.  Foot well forward, thigh coming to a position occasionally near parallel to the ground.

 

Similarly, going uphill, I exaggerate each pace into looking like an imitation of a giant striding muscularly up-slope.

 

 

Trekking poles

 

I got pair after twice getting myself into very steep and slippery down-slope conditions that required me to find dead branches to use as poles, in order to extricate myself from potentially stranding situations.  The poles are useful, too, going uphill on very steep and slippery inclines.

 

My poles have three sections each.  Reduced to their shortest carrying size, they stick manageably out of my day pack.  Which is mostly where they spend their time.  I don’t like using them on most terrain.

 

 

The moral? — Decrepitude is going to win, but we sometimes can make it fight for its inevitable victory

 

At least that’s what I’m telling myself this week.