I want to start a new thread on a subject that fascinates me, in regard to possible interactions with ANCA diseases: exercise, as in how much is a good thing; how much is too much; and what kinds of are appropriate.

Up front I will say that I believe in staying active, except when the activity brings about further stress and--especially--relapse. But how to do this? I like to hike and climb, but is this a good idea?

To be blunt, even the professionals I have consulted come up with differing answers. (The first one I asked was one of my hospital nurses, Jeff. Jeff is an avid biker and rock climber, interestingly, he said no one had ever asked that question before, and he had never heard a doctor discuss real exercise [for the patient] either. The assumption was that patients aren’t feeling good enough to exercise.] There are, to be sure, hundreds of articles on exercise and cytokine production listed on PubMed, but, so far as I can tell, few if any discuss it in the context of autoimmune diseases. The best inference I can make so far is that mild-medium exercise is good; heavy aerobic exercise is questionable, even without the matter of getting fatigued. (Exercise releases both pro-inflammatory and anti-inflammatory cytokines, though usually only at the local site of the muscles involved. Systemic cytokine production seems to happen only with heavy exercise.) Of course, a certain amount of resistance work helps prevent prednisone-induced bone loss.

Anyone know more about this subject?

Al