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Would love to hear about others climbing with significant chronic illnesses
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Anyone else out there with serious chronic illnesses that make climbing much harder? I hear about physically disabled climbers and adaptive climbing and stuff like that, but other than Project 365 (a doc about climbing with diabetes) I don't hear anything about living and climbing with chronic illness. I have ME/CFS (same thing as Mason Earle, except I'm much further along in recovery than he is and haven't been as bad as he is in some time), and this pretty drastically affects the grades I climb. It's frustrating having climbed for five years and having climbed as much as I have and still only leading 5.9 sport and projecting 5.9 cracks. I have the joints of an 80 year old basically, so I have to do loads of preventative exercises because every time I start pushing my grades I injure myself. And we're talking about climbing 5.10 here. I'm pretty motivated to climb harder, and I think in time with the preventative exercises I got from my PT I might be able to climb 5.11 or 5.12 one day, but I'd really be curious to hear if there is anyone else out there who has similar problems or any kind of significant health challenges, really. Anyone face similar challenges and is further along than I am and found ways to climb harder? Or anyone just in the same boat? I'd also be curious to hear from others about the mental/ego side of things. I've gotten good at accepting that I'm not a normal person and can't and won't have normal people experiences and most things are much harder for me than they are for others for this reason, but it is still none the less sometimes difficult for me to put so much effort into climbing and see so little gain in climbing ability. I definitely DO get results from my efforts, but I think people would be surprised how many laps often I put in to be able to send my projects. (As one example a few years ago I top rope soloed a 5.8 thin slab climb over 50 times before I led it) I reached out to Mason (us ME types have to stick together) and suggested there should be some kind of group for climbers with chronic illnesses, and he suggested it should just be a group for sick climbers. I like that a lot-- it includes mental health, and serious acute illnesses, and anyone who isn't even diagnosed but knows something is seriously wrong (which is a state most people with a chronic illness are in for years before they finally get a diagnosis). I don't know if we have enough people to make such a group, but I feel like I have a lot of questions about climbing with a serious chronic illness and probably a little advice, too, and I'd like to see if there are others out there who feel the same and would like to connect and discuss our challenges and solutions. |
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I’m a type 1 diabetic. That certainly makes climbing and life in general harder. Add to that a shoulder, foot, and thyroid conditions and I’m the life of the party. ;) |
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Speaking of 5.9, we still have to do Winches and Windlasses. |
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I will expand on this later but I’m taking my pre climb dump. I have crohns(maybe guian barre as well), at one point I lost the ability to walk/move. Spent a month re learning how to walk, a couple months before I could run normally (I ran in college) and a year till I was mostly normal again. 8 years since then I am fine and generally onsight 5.11 and send 5.12 so there is hope!!! My hands are hella swollen right now so we will see if I can send sick rigs this afternoon. |
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Great topic; there was some good related conversation in a thread about autoimmune diseases over in Injuries & Accidents. |
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I am what the medical community calls a “zebra” and have not just one, but two rare diseases. I live with Aplastic Anemia and Paroxysmal Nocturnal Hemoglobinuria. One occurred in the presence of the other. Regardless of the type of climbing or experience (climbing sport or ice, running, or being at altitude) I put extra attention to sanitation and prevention, protection, pacing myself, using proper nutrition, and carry spare medication, an overstuffed medical kit, some kind of emergency plan, special identification, and PLB if I know I am out of cell service. And I make sure to pay extra attention to my body and how I feel. Of course none of this completely deals with the fears and anxieties that live in my head. , But the experience does give me a particular frame of reference for how I choose to live my life and although I am constrained, by a need for quick access to specialized medical care, in the types of trips or lifestyles, I have made an uneasy peace with it.
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I have a split on my right middle finger that I sh*t you not, is 14 years old. I cut the skin with a scalpel and sand, but nothing gets it right. |
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Here's an interesting recent podcast with Christophe Bichet, a 5.14 climber with Fanconi's Anemia. IIRC he's like 4 feet tall, has survived the longest with the disease and has a great attitude about climbing grades. |
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My climbing partner and one of my sons are T1D. That certainly makes everything more complicated. While I don't have any climbing-specific advice, I would encourage you to check out Team Type 1 if you're looking for a best-in-class support group of athletes. It's focused on cycling and does a great job of involving caregivers and stricken alike. I think what they do remarkedly well is keep the focus on the sport. It's not where you'd go to learn about insulin or pumps per se, but it's where you'd go to figure out how not to lose your injection site from wetsuit friction, or where to set your BGs before you start a bike race. Good luck with your endeavor, the world needs more of that kind of support. |
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I don’t have a chronic illness exactly but several chronic injuries sustained in Iraq. I’ve been climbing since 2006 and have never been able to climb harder than a 5.8 |
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I also have chronic illness - chron’s disease. I get devastatingly sick a lot (not that much recently, thankfully). Lost all muscle mass and ability to walk as recently as 2019. My health, and therefore my strength, ebbs and flows. I have accepted that I have windows to climb hard. I don’t know how long or how big the windows are, but I know that I have a window right now. Chasing grades with an active chronic illness can be a bummer, but luckily none of it matters. Some days I’m stoked to send 5.11. Some days I’m stoked to be able to walk. Some days I’m stoked to only have a little pain. I think you just have to move your expectations according to your situation. Drop a line if ya ever wanna chat! |
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Ricky, is there anything attributed to your recovery process with ME/CFS? From a brief google it looks like recovery is just as unknown of a process as the illness itself. Would be curious to hear any perspective from your experience. |
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Adding to the thread - Keith Warrick's story |
Ricky Harlinewrote: There are a couple of things I feel like are worth adding here. Running was my life, I ran in college. Everything I did was focused on running. I had girls break up with me, under performed at jobs, and I was pretty ill. Then I got really sick and all that effort I put into running was gone. The thing that mattered most was lost. Try not to think of yourself as a climber think of yourself as someone who climbs. Your self esteem and self worth will do better because of this. Second, try not to measure yourself by others expectations. You need to go out and climb the best you can for that day. It might not be 5.12 or 5.8 or whatever but just try to improve. People often set a long term goal and then never hit the short term goals on the way. They want to climb 5.x so they go out, fall all over their project for a few hours. Feel worse about their climbing because of it and make no forward progress. Third, do not limit yourself by your disease. Obviously consider it but try not to look at a route and shut yourself down before trying it. At least with some kinds of arthritic pain, the act of actually moving is better than not moving and maybe when you are 10 feet off the ground you will feel better. If not laugh it off and lower down! You can definitely improve, just make sure you have fun when you are doing it. |
Nathan Doylewrote: Damn straight we do! However I should have put an asterisk next to my claim that I lead 5.9 sport, as this does not apply to slab. =P You are certainly welcome to haul my ass up that route whenever you like, however! Anthony Lwrote: I had no idea chron's was anything like that. In a way my experience is drastically different from yours, as when I am not functional it is due to fatigue and not a problem with my muscles, but I not uncommonly end up spending half a year mostly in bed and on my couch, which always set me back really significantly in my climbing. I also relate a lot to not knowing how big your windows of health are. With ME my energy is a roller coaster, and there is often little rhyme or reason to why I'm doing awfully one week and pretty great the next. But my body attacking my joints means that 5.10a is pretty hard for me. I'm mostly pretty OK with this, since the solution to this problem is more climbing, which is something I quite like to do. =P Despite the significant differences in our illnesses I think probably there is a fair bit of overlap in experience as well. I am definitely curious to hear more about how you cope. Did you have to do any training to get back into climbing after losing muscle to the point of not walking? James Mwrote: Well, firstly I think it's important to state that a lot is a toss up with this disease; most people get better over time, but some don't, and some deteriorate over time. Most people can very slowly over time resume some level of normalcy. It is commonly said that many people with ME are able to get back to 80% of their previous energy and health, but that very few recover completely. My health was pretty garbage and I was recovering from having been bed-ridden for over a year extremely slowly until I was referred to Stanford who are one of the world leaders in ME/CFS research and treatment. It took me a year just to get in! They were able to make a positive diagnosis with blood tests (as opposed to the negative "we don't know what's wrong with you" diagnosis that it used to be and often still is among doctors who aren't up to date on the latest research) and give me prescriptions that have significantly helped me, and some supplements that I'm not sure whether or not they help, but my doctor at Stanford tells me to take a whole bunch and they seem to know what they're doing better than anyone else, so I sure as hell take them. Like many things with ME, whether or not a drug is helpful for you or not seems to be a crapshoot. One of the prescriptions I get helps me a huge amount and the other seems to help me little to not at all, to the surprise of my doctor. So recovery consists mostly of finding a way to qualify for disability and then finding a way to then live cheaply enough that you can actually live off of that disability. I have kept on destroying my health by working because you know, a guy's gotta eat. I recently bought a mobile home for five thousand dollars (she's uhhhh, a bit of a fixer upper you could say) and my health has been improving more recently than it has in years, because if I don't feel like working I simply don't work, which was never possible before. I'm in several facebook groups for people with ME and it seems like the largest problem is just that people can't take the rest they need because they have to pay the bills. Hopefully in the future ME will be recognized as the serious disease that it is and more nations will adequately support those stricken with it. An interesting thing my doctor told me recently is that ME/CFS is in part a cellular disease, and that my mitochondria don't produce enough ATP, so when I'm crashing and feel awful I just have to wait for my cells to produce more ATP, at which point I will begin to be increasingly functional. There are lots of things that can help in recovery of ME, but the largest component is rest and lying down in a quiet, dark place. I would really like to thank everyone that talked about their experiences. Being a climber with a chronic illness has actually felt quite lonely, and it's been very comforting to hear about other's experiences. |
Ricky Harlinewrote: Oh man. The fatigue issue is real with my crohn’s, too. It’s one of the main symptoms for me, and it seems to linger longer than any other symptom. That and joint pain. I also deal with quite a bit of variability from day to day interns of fatigue. I think many autoimmune issues have symptom overlap but have a few buddies with M.S. that deal with these symptoms as well For how I cope: I’m super lucky to have the most supportive partner in the world. I don’t work a stressful job (thanks, supportive partner). I eat super duper well (thanks, supportive partner). And I spend as much time as I physically can in the mountains when I’m healthy. Some days are significantly easier than each other. Having a body that doesn’t always want to cooperate can be frustrating, but I try to not allow myself to wallow in thinking about it.
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Anthony Lwrote: In regards to diet, I use to crash a lot after lunch. Some days it was just a nuisance and other days it was so bad I couldn't function well for an hour or two after I ate. It was like being extremely tired in my head but, not really the same as being normal sleepy tired, if that make sense; almost like I was being drugged or something. Switching to a mostly protein breakfast (3 eggs every morning, in my case) seems to have helped. I can still do oatmeal on occasion and just the other day I went on a climbing vaca and ate some sugary pastries as a treat and was fine but, that's something I'd only do every once in a blue moon. Cutting down on sugar in general, all day, has been a great help. Cereal was a killer in the morning and pasta was the killer at night. I don't drink sugary juice (if I do drink juice I dilute it by at least half as much water) and I never drink soda etc. I also don't drink coffee or anything that gets me up and then crash me later (I don't like coffee, either way, though. One time I ate 8 chocolate covered espresso beans at work, not knowing better and had to leave for the day after crashing an hour later, as I couldn't think straight; I just went to bed until the next day.) I can eat some sweets or dried fruits or bars for or after lunch but, if I let things build up by eating them too often bad things start to happen to me so, I just keep it to a minimum. And of course I opt for whole foods over processed foods and products with 5 ingredients instead of 20 ingredients (for the same food item.) And although it's not always easy, I try to get carbs from fruits and veggies instead of breads and grains etc. and avoid foods that spike. I also stopped drinking beer/alcohol, as I couldn't recover from it like I could when I was younger; my body just wasn't processing it anymore (I liked an almost frozen bottle of Fat Tire Amber Ale but, haven't had one for probably 4 years now; I don't even remember.) This may have nothing to do with anyone else's ailments and it's possible I'm just hypoglycemic in this regard (I get the shakes sometimes and am forced to eat asap to fix it) but, thought I'd share, as it's something to consider, especially for fatigue and "brain fog." Of course, having a disease one might think that diet has nothing to do with it but, it's possible one could have a disease and still be suffering from other issues due to a "bad" diet (not to be confused with diet, as in, starving one's self for weight loss or vanity reasons or what have you) or just poor life choices in general. Accept for 5 chips I ate the other day at a Mexican restaurant, for the first time in a probably a year and the occasional fresh corn (which I seem to be able to digest better), I stopped eating corn chips and corn tortillas all together. I was dealing with acid reflux and my stomach was super inflamed all over (Gastritis) and I was in a great amount of constant pain under the left side of my chest (for like 5 years I was like this.) I just wasn't able to digest corn meal anymore. And there was a point if things got too bad stress wise I would just start throwing up pure acid. For awhile I had to stop eating pasta with marinara and red pizza sauce, as it was too "acidy" for me and I also stopped eating vinegar and oil on salad, or I'd just suffer. A few bottles of omeprazole (one a day before eating) has help a lot with that and changing my diet too, I think. For the most part I stopped eating wheat too, aside from the occasional 5 ingredient flour tortillas. Anyway, I'm not sure if have a point to make here, other than diet can really matter and I hope everyone continues to stay healthy (or gets back to healty), finds what works best for them and of course climbs a grade harder then before. |
Ricky Harlinewrote: I think you'll do fine tbh. If it makes you feel better, I'll lead it first and you can lead it the next time. |
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Since the posts here cover a wide swath of chronic issues I'll try being as generic as possible. How do you guys plan for medications or treatments? Side effects? I found some Nalgene containers that are great for storage and don't look like goofy pill boxes I remember my grandparents having (though I am sure that's down the road). Its nice for keeping em dry and safe. The treatments however dictate my life and schedule. I will say, I am glad as hell to no longer be on prednisone. I get that it's powerful but I was over feeling like a pimply, hyper, fat kid. I have told my hemonc I'll try anything before going on that again. |
Tony Bobwrote: I use those goofy pill boxes! HAHA! Having a TBI makes it challenging to remember if I took my meds or not so those pill boxes actually really help me a lot! |
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I have a genetic issue that has caused my connective tissues to be malformed, weak, or non-existent. My muscles essentially form an exoskeleton around my bones since my tendons and ligaments are complete trash. This means that my muscles stay strong without too much work, but it also means that I'm in a constant state of bouncing between being in climbing shape, and not. If I am in pain, and I have to take a week or two off from climbing, my muscles loosen, my bones start slippin, and I am back at square 1 with pain, dislocations, and difficulty with motor skills. It can take a month to get my muscles completely back to normal from one break. But, if I climb at least once a week, or do a full body workout, they stay right in place and I feel mostly like another average Jane who is plateauing in the 11s haha It took a massive effort to get to where I could even climb, as I was told to take morphine daily and use a wheelchair by the doctors who diagnosed me. But because I mostly overcame their prognosis, it has given me almost a manic motivation state. If I am in climbing shape, I feel unstoppable, but the moment I have a bad week of pain and have to take a break, it's like the world comes crashing down. I'm sure many of us can relate to chasing that feeling of stability and how overwhelming it can be. The frustration of living in a body that doesn't cooperate day to day is something we all have to wrasse with, and hopefully we can all find some peace with it someday. In a way, sometimes I feel like the folks who have an extra layer of challenge end up getting a very wholesome experience out of climbing. Since not all of us are able to chase the grades like the majority are, we end up chasing our own personal expectations, accepting our limitations, and push ourselves to improve in our own ways. That being said, I do still fall into the trap of comparing myself with others. When you're in your 20's, you're supposed to be in your "prime", and its tough sometimes to accept that I have to do things differently, or not at all. Cheers to all my other folks who can use climbing for strength, motivation, happiness, or however else it helps you in your life when dealing with an illness. Climb often, and stay sane y'all :) |
