Backpacking while ill

I have a trip planned in 5 days and caught a stomach bug from grandkids. Sort of mild flu-like symtoms, but slowly improving. Just wondered how many of you started a trip when recouping from illness? Hopefully this will not be an issue by Friday.

I've done that - hiked off the only hangover I've ever had. Worked great - headache and fuzziness gone within hours, probably due to sweating it out and drinking nearly constantly.

WD, I would make certain your electrolytes are all topped up, I would build up your carb reserves as best as you are able (brown rice and potatoes are good), carry extra "anti-bonk" snacks, and more electrolyte drink than you normally carry. How quickly you recover depends on how healthy you were before you got sick. I'm guessing you will probably recover relatively quickly knowing that you keep yourself in good shape.

Hope you feel better quickly!

MNS

Plan short days the first few until you're back to full strength. Take easily digestible food for those first few days. Also, please postpone your departure if you are still "going" at either end!

YEp--OM is right. And give yourself a few "outs" where you can stop, bail, or take it easy if you are not feeling great.

I dunno, I guess I figured she wanted commiseration more than advice... seems to me she's been doing this long enough to know what to do.

I am commiserating a bit, but honestly, I have so rarely been sick during backpack season that I have not had this dilema before. The trip has been planned for months, costly reservations already with set dates, and two friends committed their vacation time. If it were a solo trip, I would just wait until I was sure I was fully better. I am just mildly sick- no nausea- no true diherea -just stomach ache when I eat and lack of energy- swear I have slept 12 hours the last two days. I was a bit achy but that is now better. Hard to say if the aches were not just from all the unusual lifting of the 1-year old and bending, etc that comes with playing "pirate" with the 3-yr old. I am actually terrible at judging sickness since I rarely get more than typical head colds. I plan on going, but good idea to take some extra stuff to settle my stomach just in case. I do not even know what over-the-counter medicine I should take with me. Luckily, one of the friends going with me is an ICU nurse.

I think I would defer right up to the last day whether to go, and hope the stomach thing goes away. Not sure if I would go anywhere if that were still happening, tho. i've had stomach flu at least once a year and throwing up is bad enough in a bathroom at home where I can wash up well!

I certainly hope you feel better soon! Hopefully in 5 days you'll be OK!

In the meantime, all the suggestions about hydrating, using an electrolyte solution in your water, getting plenty of rest, etc., are good. I nearly bonked out on a recent hike and was sure I would be too tired to drive home. Digging out my Hydralite (formerly Gookinaid) and adding it to my drinking water had me perked up within an hour!

I would be concerned about the trajectory of the illness. Starting a hike when you are slowly recoverying is OK, but slowly sinking is NOT OK.

I had a two day episode of osmotic diarrhea when I hiked the "gems" in the Grand Canyon. It forced me to hike smart because I knew that my physical ability could not overcome any mistakes.

That's a great and very important point. I had to cancel a much anticipated trip last year when I came down with a grandchild borne illness (they do love to share those!).

I would have been miserable had I gone. It got worse during the first several days of the scheduled trip. I ended up waiting for an entire week after I really started getting better to go, two weeks in all, and I still wasn't 100% at that point.

As it turned out for me, the weather sucked during the planned dates, and was sweet when I did go, so it all worked out.

Hope you recover quicker than I did W_D!

So how'd it work out? I'm hoping there is no response because that'll mean you're feeling better and off on your camping trip! Stay hydrated!!

It all worked out fine. Funny thing is that my friend also had been feeling "off" but for both of us, once in the mountains we were "cured". I am convinced that a lot of slightly ill feelings are caused by civilzation. I think it was John Muir, who when sick, went to the mountains to heal.

I've basically done that since I was a kid. I'd go to school, church, shopping, visit relatives or friends of the family, out on a date as a teen, to work, and start feeling awful for no apparent reason. When I was young I was generally told to "Stop faking it" since there were no real outwardly detectable symptoms and they manifested themselves in many different ways, from headaches to muscle pain, to nausea and gut problems, and combos of all.

By my late teens I figured I must have some odd psychological defect that made me feign illness, but even that didn't seem right since a lot of times it happened when I was genuinely looking forward to being where the ill feelings came on.

By my early 20's I figured out that fresh air and exercise was the sure and only cure. Figuring that out was a boon because sometimes the ill feelings lasted for weeks, but it also helped reinforced my suspicions that it was all psychological since that was all pure fun for me.

Silly me, it turned out to be "chemical sensitivities". Perfumes and solvents are among the leading causes that affect me, and it was a real life changer when I finally understood that.

Church ladies, teen girls, disco dudes, and workplace chemicals, they really do make me sick

I've also learned that not all "fragrances" are the same. Now I can tell with just a whiff if something is "poison" to me, and, since "Chemical Sensitivity" is now acknowledged by the medical community, I can make a graceful escape from overexposure

It wouldn't surprise me one iota to learn that John Muir suffered from the same thing

Bill...

I used to be MCS to the point where I was virtually homebound. At the end I was so bad that I couldn't go shopping by myself because walking through a store would render me senseless and unable to drive. I did everything fragrance free at home and avoided anything that would expose me to toxins. That all went away when I discovered I had Celiac disease. When I started the GF diet I did not expect the MCS to go away, and it caught me off guard when it did. There are still a few things I react to, but nothing like in the old days. I got my life back when I started the GF diet in 2003. Have you ever tried a gluten free diet?

MNS

I've never even considered a GF diet, but I'll certainly read up on Celiac disease. I can't say I've ever noticed a connection to gluten, and when I eat oatmeal I feel really good right afterwards, but I'll pay close attention to that to see if there is something there, especially in the days following.

For me, when I made the direct connection to perfumes I started to avoid them. That's not that easy though, especially with a wife and five kids. The toxic fragrances are in so many products. One of the worst is those scented strips they put in magazines. Those were vicious. My girls would bring those home and I'd have to do a full house search to find them.

After a couple years I had grouched enough to get things pretty well cleaned up and since the house wasn't a barrage of fragrances anymore you could detect new ones right away, so it was easier to keep stuff from coming in too.

It must have been awful for you. Gluten seems to be in everything too, so I can imagine that you hardly ever had a break. For me, when I realized that I could shake it off with a few hours walking in a secluded place away from traffic and people it got a lot better, even though I felt guilty for doing it, and no one really understood the need.

Now, after a couple decades of very low exposure, I can tolerate being exposed quite a bit better, but at it's worst I couldn't take it more than a few minutes before I felt like a roach sprayed with Raid.

Thanks for taking the time to point out the Celiac disease connection. Things like that can change someones life. It was my mother that pointed out the connection to fragrances and when she did I instantly realized how it fit in with my situation.

Just for the record, if you eat gluten do you feel it right away? Is there anything that contains gluten that is especially noticeable after you eat it?

I drink beer everyday, but only beer made with barley, never wheat beer, that makes my stomach gurgle and gives me the same yucked out feeling as the nasty fragrances. But I love heavy wheat bread, though I can't say it's ever made me feel good. I really have to pay attention to this...

Thanks again!

My son 3 went on a gluten-free diet last fall. However, his problem is not celiac disease but an apparent allergy to wheat--he can eat oatmeal without problems. Since he went on the diet he has stopped getting dry skin patches and rashes. He also has lost weight (a good thing) since when eating lunch out with colleagues he pretty much has to stick with salads!

Some of his gluten-free snacks taste better than those with wheat, which makes it difficult to keep the kids out of them--they are definitely more expensive than the kids' crackers!

Hey Bill...

Before I went GF I could eat oatmeal and feel great. I also ate more rice than most people. But I didn't feel any symptoms from eating wheat because I was never off of it long enough for my system to clear fully (the body adapts to things it can't tolerate - not that it isn't reacting, but the reaction is muted because the system is constantly being bombarded). Once I was off gluten about 95% for about 6 weeks I did start noticing some symptom remission and exacerbation upon eating wheat products. That was when I made the connection - a left lower quadrant abdominal pain that I'd had for several years but been unable to identify the source of went away on the mostly GF diet and then returned with a vengeance shortly after eating a cinnamon roll (my first piece of bread in that 6 weeks). After that I went (or tried to go - it took several years to find and eliminate trace gluten) fully gluten free. For a while I would know I had gotten into it because it would cause GI bleeding and general upset for about 4 days. After 6 years on the diet I accidentally ate a gluten meal (chef misunderstood "gluten-free") and had no reaction except maybe some headache and fuzziness. Now when I get into it I feel "tight headed," fuzzy and generally "blah" for a day, but recover fairly quickly. I do have to be careful about my oats. I can eat certain brands of oats, but I am only moderately tolerant of commercial 'non-gluten ingredient' products like granola and granola bars (oats are gluten-free, but very often contain cross contamination due to being alternated with wheat in crop rotation schemes).

Eating gluten-free is much easier now than it used to be. So many products are specifically labeled as 'gluten-free'. Nine years ago when I started this wasn't the case. They are still more expensive, but many more mainstream products have been reformulated (i.e. Chex, and now Rice Krispies), which makes it easier to eat GF on a tight student's budget.

By the way, they keep refining the incidence rate of gluten sensitivitiy. The most recent number I saw is that 1 in 100 people have a gluten issue. The biggest problem with gluten sensitivity is that the digestive system (small intestines) are long, and it may only be a small portion of the system that is damaged. But in that area the digestive tract opens up and is more permeable to whatever is in your digestive "goop" so you can get exposed to alot of waste products that the gut would normally filter out (like fragrance chemicals). You heal the damage and you are no longer exposed to the toxins. It can also impair absorption of nutrients. But because the damage is different for everyone, the symptoms are different as well. Nobody thought to tie my migraines, chemical sensitivities, and peripheral neuropathy to what I was eating, but all of those symptoms went away on a GF diet. Last year I learned of a case of Lou Gherig's disease that went into remission on a GF diet (talked to the doctor who published the case). It is an amazing disease/disorder that is so simple to treat, but identifying it can take a lifetime.

MNS