Trekking poles and... Re: [at-l] Re: Body Puffiness &Swelling

[spiriteagle99 at hotmail.com (Jim and/or Ginny Owen)]

Kelly Whitman wrote:
>I am disabled and my hands don't work very well in certain ways so I'm not
>sure I could hold something like trekking poles for long periods of time.
>It's possible I could, I'll probably have to try it to find out.

Yeah - I'm playing catch-up - for about 30 minutes.  Then it'll be "back to 
the salt mine."

My hands don't work too well either (too many broken fingers/knuckles) - but 
I rarely hike without a pole anymore.  Reasons - 1/ it's saved me a lot of 
bad falls and 2/ last time we went through this discussion on at-l I posted 
an article that quoted several studies that said hiking poles mitigate 
musculoskeletal  damage and 3/ my tent requires two of the dread "commercial 
trekking poles."  In fact, from personal experience on the AT --- my knee 
problems on the AT started only after I lost the hiking poles that I'd 
started the Trail with - somewhere in Vermont.

>My main motivation for using them would be because I heard they can help if
>you have knee problems, which I never had until just a few weeks ago when I

Yup - that's what I just said.

>  If that won't work, I might have to try trekking poles.
>

There are too many reasons to carry them (or at least one) to allow your 
doctor to make that decision for you.  I'd suggest that you read Colin 
Fletcher's thoughts on this subject -
Walk softly,
Jim

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