hi, gaya. my name is Yee Peng, I will be doing the walk this coming August. Thanks for your information. Just one worry, I have heard stories about people finishing the walk with swollen legs etc. Did you have such experience?
Hi Yee Peng, thankfully I did not experience swollen legs during the walk. I was very careful to prevent this from happening by doing the following: (1) buy comfortable supportive broken-in shoes; (2) at the end of a day of walking, and before sleeping, take a lot of time to massage your feet, ankles, calves, knees -- even if it does not yet hurt or if it does, wherever it hurts -- preferably with some ointment to get the swelling down (I used Voltaren gel -- an anti-inflammatory gel -- but not too much as it also has some medicine); (3) elevate your legs to rest them before sleeping; (4) at the start of a walking day, before putting on your shoes, put some kind of lotion/ointment on your feet to prevent blisters (I used Hirschtalg and Nilchfett -- available in Germany -- they are some kind of medical salve/ointment -- I am not sure what the equivalent is in English. If some area still feels swollen, I put a bit of Voltaren gel. My sister used a blister stick salve from Compeed. You can get these along the way in some of the pharmacies.); (5) bring some support sandals to change into at the end of walking day so as to rest your legs (I had Tevas); (6) if some leg/feet areas feel tight, do some light stretching -- such as runners stretch, quadriceps stretch, calf stretch, etc. (I think I will write another blog entry to discuss the above and describe the stretches more.) If you take care of your feet and legs from the very beginning of your walk, then I believe you will not have any problems. Good luck on your walk this August! I hope the above information helps -- it helped us a lot during our walk -- specially as we sometimes walked almost 40 kilometers a day, towards the end of our trip. Buen Camino, Yee Peng!
hi, gaya. my name is Yee Peng, I will be doing the walk this coming August. Thanks for your information. Just one worry, I have heard stories about people finishing the walk with swollen legs etc. Did you have such experience?
ReplyDeleteHi Yee Peng, thankfully I did not experience swollen legs during the walk. I was very careful to prevent this from happening by doing the following: (1) buy comfortable supportive broken-in shoes; (2) at the end of a day of walking, and before sleeping, take a lot of time to massage your feet, ankles, calves, knees -- even if it does not yet hurt or if it does, wherever it hurts -- preferably with some ointment to get the swelling down (I used Voltaren gel -- an anti-inflammatory gel -- but not too much as it also has some medicine); (3) elevate your legs to rest them before sleeping; (4) at the start of a walking day, before putting on your shoes, put some kind of lotion/ointment on your feet to prevent blisters (I used Hirschtalg and Nilchfett -- available in Germany -- they are some kind of medical salve/ointment -- I am not sure what the equivalent is in English. If some area still feels swollen, I put a bit of Voltaren gel. My sister used a blister stick salve from Compeed. You can get these along the way in some of the pharmacies.); (5) bring some support sandals to change into at the end of walking day so as to rest your legs (I had Tevas); (6) if some leg/feet areas feel tight, do some light stretching -- such as runners stretch, quadriceps stretch, calf stretch, etc. (I think I will write another blog entry to discuss the above and describe the stretches more.) If you take care of your feet and legs from the very beginning of your walk, then I believe you will not have any problems. Good luck on your walk this August! I hope the above information helps -- it helped us a lot during our walk -- specially as we sometimes walked almost 40 kilometers a day, towards the end of our trip. Buen Camino, Yee Peng!
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