Hot weather hiking affliction: Golfer's Vasculitis

This sock had elasticized top

Chances are, you hot weather hikers have seen something like this. That's my leg you're looking at, yesterday's view, and not much of a concern to me since I knew what it was.

The first encounter was a scare - on Susan's leg while hiking in France, and we had no idea what it was. Just it came on while hiking in very hot weather, and was right under the elasticized band of her sock, warm to the touch and puffy, but not painful. A wider, more brilliant band than you see here on my leg.

A few days later, the whole foot started swelling in a major way, all the way from toes to half way up the shin, and extremely painful. That ended up with us going to emergency, where a severe infection was diagnosed, treatable with antibiotics, but we had to cancel the trip and it took two weeks for the swelling to subside. The doctors were unable to determine point of entry for the infection. They did x-rays for hairline fractures - none. Final thought was that hiking had generated invisible cracks in the feet where some infection could have gained entry. This was all very stressful and we totally forgot about the earlier red band around her leg.

Zoom of top image

I also did a lot of Googling, and learned that the usual cause of this is a condition called Golfer's Vasculitis, according to internet comments, unknown to a lot of doctors.

A good link on the subject:
 https://www.medhelp.org/posts/Dermatology/Golfers-Vasculitis-is-more-than-just-annoying/show/543722

It is usually just on the inner side of the leg. The best treatment is avoidance, no pressure at all on the leg in the sock area during hot weather. Stop, remove socks, let leg cool, wipe with water if necessary. Wear very light un-elasticized socks if you can find them, cut or fold down the elasticized part if you have to. Once it occurs, remove socks and get out of the hot conditions and it will be gone in two or three days.

This sock was loose but pulled up

Susan has been ordered not to hike the last few months, to cure severe pain caused by strain of muscle sheathing over a large band of muscle going down the outer leg, so I've been doing hikes in the local area, to maintain conditioning (with notable lack of success). The last ten days have peaked in the 90's F each day - the normal is 60s to low seventies. One night Susan looked at my leg as it rested on the coffee table while we watched The Good Wife. "What's that?" Me: "What's what?".

That prompted me to take these pictures. The final picture is of socks. I only wear liner socks. The rightmost is an REI liner sock from about 10 years ago. It is very comfortable, and does not have an elasticized top. After 10 years it is nice and loose. Unfortunately, the dozen or so I had of these are now wearing out, and are no longer made. All liner socks now have elasticized tops. Your only choice is how elastic. I find any elasticizing at all is too much if the sock is pulled up to full height. The leftmost sock is typical and ok if I fold the top down to the top of my running shoes. The center sock is one that was severely elasticized, so I made a field repair, using my Swiss Army Knife scissors to cut through the elasticized part.

Almost forgot my conclusion. The this weeks incident of me getting the symptoms reminded me of Susan's incident in France. When the infection was occurring, we totally forgot about the two days earlier Golfer's Vasculitis incident. My current thought is that the two days of hiking with this condition created some cracks, minor wounds so that the infection got started there. If you get a GV incident, be sure to keep it clean, and try not to aggravate it further.