Feeling Sad

I use to love to powerwalk for hours love nature, now it’s so hard to walk because of osteoarthritis pain in both my knees and back. At times I feel depressed and cry feel so limited. Who wants to live like this with everyday pain, I try stretching at home to keep from getting stiff but still limited to a point.

[alnapier Partner]

Hello Tita77, I am so sorry that your pain is causing you to not be able to walk and enjoy nature as you once did. I think you are on the right track of stretching and walking as much as you can. It sounds counter intuitive but walking has been shown to improve mobility and lessen pain. Continue to walk as much as you can and maybe speak with a physical therapist if you are able to.

[kirstenra Administrator in reply to alnapier]

Totally agree! Try to keep walking as you are able to maintain joint mobility and minimize pain. I wanted to add something given your note about loving nature. One of the major downfalls of osteoarthritis is a reduction in quality of life, meaning that when pain and mobility issues increase, the enjoyable things in life tend to fall away while you just try to get by. Consider new approaches to the things you love, like being in nature. It's not walking for hours as you used to do, but consider spending 30 minutes or an hour sitting in a favorite spot in the woods to meditate and soak up all that nature offers. Consider learning Tai Chi for Arthritis - which is very gentle on your joints and keeps you moving - and do it in a park or in a quiet spot in your yard. Also will help alleviate depression to connect with the things you love.

[SuperSnapper]

Hello, I wondered if your knees were bad enough for a replacement. Arthritic knees can , as I am sure you know, lead to imbalance and back pain. Knee replacements are serious operations but it's vital to keep moving as much as you can, and replacements can really get you back to pain free knees and may help your back too. Please go talk to your GP. I have a partial knee replacement on my left knee and it's been really good for keeping me mobile and fit.

[kohai OA Ambassador]

Hi there,

I can totally empathise. Neither my husband or I drive, we used to walk every where. Then back in 2009, because I had a job working from home, it meant we could finally get a dog. We've always had rescued dogs, The Patterdale Terrier was returned to the pound four times by different people, all saying he was "hyper-active"!..

Nonsense! Being long distance walkers was great for the dogs, and we found out that the Patterdale wasn't hyper at all, he just wasn't getting all of the excercise he needed. It took us 10 miles before he decided he'd walked enough, so we'd found his need. This was great for us, although we often walked much further, we could keep to the 10 mile. Then we sadly lost my mum and we took on her heavily over-weight Jack Russell, and for various reasons, he wasn't getting the exercise he needed either.

In 2010 we lost both my mum and father in law, we moved back to Wales. Sadly life all around went down hill. We lost the Patterdale to a heart condition, my husband had a heart attack then went into cardiac arrest and I was told I had shoulder impingement in both shoulders.

It wasn't until about late 2011 when we were walking back from a large field the Jack Russell loved playing in that I realised half way back that I literally couldn't lift one leg infront of the other. It was how I imagine walking with concrete blocks on my feet. Wales being full of hills, we had several to go up before getting home, but I couldn't make it. My husband had to force me to get in a taxi.

Since then I was diagnosed with YA in all major joints, and I've had it in all knuckles on both hands since 1998. Then, just when I thought the pain walking couldn't get any worse, I was told I have disc degeneration throughout the lumbar section of my spine and the cervical area (basically top and bottom of my spine).

Some days, at most, I can manage an hour using crutches, the rest of the time I have to rely on a wheelchair.

All the exercises I've seen, involve either bending, twisting, stretching, leaning forward, turning or rotating my head or laying on my back.

All of which will render me bed ridden for up to three days. I can barely walk most days, its like each step sends shock waves through my joints.

Like you, I love nature, just being outdoors either with the dog, camping, hiking, gentle ramble around lakes, taking photographs, I also love astronomy, but now the cold gets straight into my joints.

I don't get flare ups, I wish I did, I have this 24/7, every day of the year without a break. So believe me when I say I can truly empathise with you and wish I had advice to pass on, but I'm still struggling to cope myself and feel so lost and helpless/useless.

I do wish you all the very best of luck in finding something, anything that eases your pain, and maybe, if you do, pass it along?

Julie