[pct-l] Re: foot size growing on a thruhike of PCT

[charliethorpe@worldnet.att.net (Charlie Thorpe)]

Hello Charlie -

Hooboy...I am NOT going to ask my wife to join in this dialog (she is also
named "Charlie" <g>).

I said:

>...Did a little over 400 miles of the CDT...but my feet did fine!

You said:

>I interpret this to mean, your feet didn't increase in size on this
>trip, but what about the soreness? Were your feet sore "for months
>after your hike?"

Nope.  Nothing like the general overall (hobble around the house) soreness
that I experienced after the my two long thru-hikes.  BTW, the soreness
went away much faster after the PCT...I have to credit the electrical
"tingle" treatment and the custom orthotic inserts for that.

I still have a sore spot that may (or may not) be related to my distance
hiking vices.  I seem to have developed a problem with the way that the
joint works where my big toe joins with my right foot.  My big toe bends
back MUCH less than normal before it jams against the bone it joins into at
the top of the foot.  It gets sore when I walk more than a few miles (even
around town).  A podiatrist at my HMO (non-hiker) diagnosed it as a
"congenital foot defect" and said that it isn't all that uncommon in the
general foot population out in the real world.

The cure seems to be to either let him chop out the offending bone (yeah,
sure...) or to dink around with a custom orthotic insert.  So far his
orthotic insert hasn't worked on the trail worth a hoot, but I have been
able to figure out how to build up under the ball of the "SuperFeet" insert
with duct tape to mostly solve the problem.

I am not at all convinced that the problem is congenital.  Why would a
problem that I was born with only start to show up at age 54 and after I
had backpacked 6-7 thousand miles?

I had an interesting (and possibly related) problem show up during the
diagnostic process as we tried to figure out why my feet were hurting after
the PCT hike.  One source of pain was on the back of my (right) heel down
near the base.  I could feel a distinct bump where the sore spot was.  The
x-rays showed that there was actually a bump in the bone at that location.

The ortho doc opined the "bump" was a calcium pad that had developed during
the latter stages of the PCT hike.  Apparently the general inflammation
that was rampant in all the stretched, twisted, pounded, and generally
deformed/abused foot-bone connecting tissues caused a change in the pH
balance (blood?) of the innards of my foot.  The changed pH balance allowed
calcium to precipitate out at a place of inflammation and the heel bump
resulted.

BTW, the doc guessed that the heel sore spot would go away over time and
that the bump may (or may not) slowly go away.  So far it has quit hurting
(didn't bother me during the recent CDT hike) and the bump itself seems to
be getting smaller (haven't done any more x-rays to check it out).

I guess that my questioning of the podiatrist's toe diagnosis boils down
to:  if calcium can deposit on a heel's sore spot, why can't it deposit on
a toe's sore spot?  Maybe I had a little "toe-jamming" built in from birth
and it only became bad enough to get my attention as a result of a couple
of distance hikes.

Wow...I just noticed that your question was a LOT simpler than my long
answer <g>.

While I am tempted to answer with a simple "no", I had better fess up and
say:  "yes, at least one of my feet has continued to have at least one sore
spot during the month following my walk on the CDT".

- Charlie II  AT (MEGA'93)
             PCT (Mex@Can'95)
     Chipping away at the CDT


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