Hill walker with heart failure
Just joined this forum and looking fo... - British Heart Fou...
Just joined this forum and looking for others who are into hill walking with a heart condition. Experienced munroer now going a bit slower.
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Heartinthehills
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Might help if you can say where you are, assume talking about Munro's you are in Scotland.
Thanks for the hint. Sadly not living in Scotland but holiday there nearly every year. Currently in Essex moving to Kent. Born in Lancashire and visit family there quite often and spend time on Lakeland mountains. Familiar also with all the Welsh mountains and some in Europe. If there's a hill and I have the kit I climb it. Going cautious on the privacy hints on this forum as I keep a low profile online generally.
Really pleased to see you have some very supportive followers.
A person after my own way of thinking. I presume it will largely depend on your condition, your treatment and very importantly your type of medication. I had an AVR in December 2019. I am now regularly back in the hills. Back to the same mileage and ascents that I used to do. The main thing I have found is to be very aware of pacing myself. I just set off slow and never put myself under pressure with a time limit for the walk. In addition (unlike when I was younger), I am now not afraid of cutting a walk short or even turning back, rather than pressing on no matter what. Slow and steady wins the day I feel.
Knowing you limits and pacing it has been my approach as well. I missed a third easy top (Creag Pitridh) in a group of 3 Munros after biking in 4 miles to do them all 2 years after my MI. Knew I couldn’t do it and thought process is now its a good excuse to go back again.
Yes, me. Been a life long passion. It's what brought my husband and I together 28 years ago and continues to be a joint passion. Unfortunately I have rheumatoid arthritis and heart failure. The arthritis is a real limitation. I was still walking regularly when my heart failure was diagnosed, EF in the low to mid 30's. Dr's were a little surprised at what I was still doing with that EF. My arthritis was well controlled at that time. Long story short, it turns out that the arthritis medication was probably contributing to, if not causing, the heart failure. Came off the arthritis medication, heart failure improved but arthritis flared up big time. I'm now on new arthritis drugs but it is going to take time to get back into full action. My heart failure is now well controlled, to the extent I've been discharged by my heart failure nurse and will now have annual check ups with my GP. Arthritis is coming under control again. Like you I walk alone as well as with my husband and friends. I'm retiring next year, I cut my hours when diagnosed with heart failure and decided to retire earlier than originally planned. Next year is the earliest we can afford to go. I'm currently doing a virtual walking challenge, to walk the distance of the Wales Coastal Path, 870 miles, in a year. I'm almost 200 miles in, after 7 weeks, not too bad as I'm recovering from an arthritis flare. I've set myself the goal of trying to match the total climb, 35,000 ft as well as distance.
It must of been scary having a heart attack out alone.
Well done Gracie! You won't know yourself once you retire, It's a bit like getting out of Jail. The freedom to go off and do things while you can is wonderful. If you don't mind me being nosey, do you use a tracker to keep a track of your steps? Do you follow/omit any particular foods or diet plan to help with your Arthritis?
Good to hear you haven’t given up and I hope the arthritis drugs work. I’m the lucky one of 3 siblings without arthritis, our mother had it for many years. I have 33% EF and have found that a low level one mile or so walk- in to any gradients allows me to do even the steepest of climbs at a slow pace. I use a mountain bike for long approaches to make it easier on the way down. Now 71 and itching to be back on Scottish hills again. Memories of my MI have faded but being used to a lifetime of lately solo hill walking helped cope with the event. An unconscious use of CBT which I was used to practising also helped. A survival bag helped in what was very bad weather but still suffered exposure with reduced circulation and had pneumonia to clear as well as the heart repair. Tayside Mountain Rescue phoned me back every 20 minutes to check on me before they got to me 10 miles off road from Blair Atholl and 2,500ft up in cloud. Not an experience I would want to repeat but with the drugs, check ups and keeping as fit as possible I feel safe enough to keep going. You sound to be doing all the right things to get back on the Munros
Hi Heartinthehills
Keep at it as long as you can! I am 75 and I am slowing down a bit so I save my pennies and go to Austria, France or Switzerland to get onto their summer ski lifts , so that I can get to enjoy the views and try and find a reasonably level path from one lift to another. Flying into Innsbruck is quite interesting as you descend between snow capped mountains, usually in a smallish Jet.
Some of these walks really linger in my memory, like the Emperors path above Wengen, with magnificent views of the Eiger and the Monch and the Jungfrau, or the Grand Balcon along the side of Mont Blanc , a fairly level path at a height of 2,000 metres above Chamonix. I joined the Austrian Alpine club to get helicopter evacuation if needed - it usually not covered by travel insurance until you get down to the landing place to get into an ambulance. Unfortunately the Ehic card is ending with Brexit so we shall have to see what happens next.
Thanks for the tips on Austrian walking. I have also had one walking trip to the Leutasch Valley with Inntravel since my MI and used chair lifts to gain height. My wife is claustrophobic and won’t go in a cable car! We are a bit of a double handicap together. I would be interested to know which tour operator you use for Austria and Switzerland if any.
Inghams - lakes and mountains to Austria, Inntravel to Kanderstag and Wengen in Switzerland, Tui to lake limone in Italy, All have a good selection of bus and train trips as well as walking. Can your wife go on trains?
Thanks for the tour operator tips. Lets hope some of them survive the travel restrictions. We plan to return to Austria and other Alpine areas. I’ll look up your suggestions once it all opens up again. We have used trains but tunnels are also a problem for my wife - panic attack after a few minutes- so have to plan carefully. I have used a fairly old App for tracking and recording all my Munro tops as Waymark’s. MotionX - GPS. You can also download free maps for foreign travel which we may need again if free data roaming goes with Brexit.
Hi there,
Like-minded soul here. I’m 48 years old and have a HF diagnosis (34% ef) following a STEMI in March 2019. Prior to that I was a very fit former career soldier who covered many hundreds of miles over the (mostly Welsh) mountains under significant weight. Six months before HA I took part in the Brecon Beacons 10 peaks, finishing in the top third of runners.
Those days are definitely over, but I am largely asymptomatic and doing lots of regular exercise at a moderate intensity. I have an ICD and, due to my relative ‘youth’ the medics are focused on keeping me stable for as long as possible. I’ve just started on Entresto and so far, so good.
I feel ready to get back into the hills, but there are only pimples nearby in my part of SE England! I had planned to go to the top of Pen-y-Fan on the first anniversary of my HA earlier this year, but lockdown thwarted that.
All the best, J
Heartinthehills in reply to
Hi J. You sound in much better shape than I am. Same EF though and your exercise routine sounds a bit like mine. I stay away from ‘challenges’ but found and still do find enough challenging stuff for my capacities in the Scottish Mountains. I am also in SE and a long drive from proper hills. Moved from Fife 30 years ago and started the Munros as a lifetime excuse to get back to Scotland with only one spare week each year in a busy career and family life. Having two sons helped until they had their own families. I still have 80 to do and ironic that my MI came 6 months before retirement. For the sake of the family I have so far agreed to continue only when with someone else. Haven’t heard of Entresto which sounds like an equivalent to Ramipril which I have been on (2.5mg morning and night) as part of my daily cocktail for 7 years now. Initially supposed to increase the dose but after losing some weight with a BMI of 19 now told the dose is sufficient. You may have low BP like me and poor circulation which has an effect in extremes of temperature. I invested in warmer good quality and lightest weight kit I could find to make long days on the hills more comfortable. Sounds like you are starting out right to test your abilities.
I've not got heart failure, my conditions are angina with normal coronaries, Rheumatic Heart Syndrome with trivial aortic valve scarring, and recurrent pericarditis with minimal residual pericardial effusion, and some scarring and thickening of the pericardium.
That said (no heart failure) when my cardiologist said my latest acute pericarditis flare had finally cleared and I excitedly replied along the lines of 'Yippee! Now I can get back to bagging Munros!' he almost fell off his chair in shock.
I'm a 64yo Scottish Lady Heartie who has sadly been informed I am no longer permitted (advised) to go above 2000ft unless in a pressurised aeroplane cabin. I look to the hills with longing but will not succumb to the temptation.
Talk to your cardiologist to be clear on his/her advise regarding bagging even the lowest Munro.
Thanks for responding and sorry to hear about your new limitations. My cardiologist in the flat lands of Essex said 7 years ago “you will never climb a mountain again” and signed me off a bit miffed to the local specialist heart failure nurse team. The specialist nurse was more encouraging and with cardiac rehab and a lot of extra effort I did some 2,000 ft walks in the English Lake District 8 months later in winter then more in the summer and 12 Munros in a 10 day trip 2 years after my MI on Carn a’ Chlamain. Only one trip since for another 10 Munros. About 80 to go and yearning for my next trip to your lovely country. Still only 33% ejection fraction but seem to be able to continue. Hope your condition improves and I guess we all need to know our own bodies now.
Interesting. Aircraft cabins are pressurised to the equivalent of 8000 feet, but you are sittting down, Have a look at the Grahams, the Corbetts and the Marilyns,
Any Munro is going to be 3000ft or more. A pressurised aeroplane cabin starts on the ground and I think that's why the cardiologist used it as an example to get his point across about what he advised.
