Just got out of the hospital last night after almost two full days in the hospital. It all started from a calves exercise and never in my wildest dreams did I think it could cause me the problems it did.

Message above all is becareful out there and moderation in all things!

If I'm not mistaken, there was a thread on it not too long ago.

Can you give more details on what caused it for you. It might save a reader here the pain of going through it.

There have been a few threads on it. I personally started one when my wife and I did the Murph challenge. My wife had rhabdo and compartment syndrome in her arms. Thankfully they caught it early enough that she barely avoided surgery. It was a scary week.

We are fit and she drinks about a gallon of water a day. Also, alcohol was not a factor for her either. She just overworked her muscles doing the pushups portion of the Murph.

I did a calves workout on Monday. No problems Tuesday with soreness, etc. Wednesday, things really started to tighten up to where it was difficult walking. Thursday, I couldn't put my heels to the ground because of the pain. It would take me about 10 minutes to straighten up and be able to walk somewhat normal, but if I sat back down again, the calves would tighten up all over again.

The thing that caught me off guard was when I went to pee. I went and peed on Thursday at work and was alarmed to see my urine was super dark. For a person who drinks at least 80 ounces of water per day, I was not accustomed to seeing my urine that dark.

Had my wife looki it up which led us to suspect Rhabdomyolesis. As a Type 1 Diabetic, I'm always particularly concerned about my kidneys. On Friday morning, I checked myself into St. Lukes. My CK levels came in at 39,000. They kept me there till Saturday night pumping me full of fluids until my CK levels dropped to around 5,000.

It was a very scary lesson. In short, when you damage muscle it leaks myoglobin which your kidneys cannot filter. It can destroy your kidneys and in some extreme examples can lead to death. Be careful out there!

Was thrown into acute renal failure and rhabdo after a very intense week of exercise. Bottom line:take at least a week off and dont come back until your blood labs show normal levels.

What did the calves workout consist of (ie what exercises, volume, etc)?

A couple of things:

They checked my CK levels on Saturday morning and they checked in at 14,000. They dropped 25,000 over the previous 24 hours. I agreed to continue to get fluids till 4:30 Saturday night (at 4:30 AM I was at the 14,000 CK.). I'm just assuming that it dropped to the 5,000 level as the hospital doctor said 5,000 was the level they feel is out of the danger zone and will agree to send you home. My kidney tests all appeared normal so I think we caught it in time.

The workout I did was load about 230 lbs on the calf raise machine and go till you cannot go any longer. Wait 10 seconds and go till you can go no further. Wait 10 seconds and go again. Do this until you reach 75 reps over 4 min.

The doctor did not forbid me to workout. She just said to be moderate. Have you guys received any advice that sheds some light on dos/don'ts after having suffered from Rhabdo as far as resuming exercise?

Right now my calves, ankles, and feet look like a pregnant woman. They're all swelled up. Any idea of when the swelling may go away?

Now I'm just drinking tons of water making sure my urine is still clear.

Yeah, dark urine despite drinking a normal amount of water in the right context (recent intense workout) should raise alarm bells. Very tender muscle compartments, numbness/tingling below those muscle compartments, extreme weakness/soreness/tightness of muscles are other warning symptoms. I think I see it hit more people that are in shape than I see out of shape. In shape people can just keep pushing themselves till their muscles break down enough to cause rhabdo, out of shape people typically can't go that far.

This is the first time I've heard of rhabdo from the calves from working out. So far I've seen biceps after Murph, low paraspinal after some crossfit deadlift challenge thing, thighs after an insane amount of wall sits, and chest from a bunch of benching to failure.

I've hospitalized two kids over the years with Rhabdo both were overweight out of shape kids who were basically hazed and not given water or breaks then puked and nearly passed out. They didn't develop kidney failure just needed a few days of IVF and serial labs.

Wow that's crazy, is diabetes a risk factor for getting it?

culdeus said:

---

Wow that's crazy, is diabetes a risk factor for getting it?

---

Only if poorly controlled. If you have chronic spillage of sugar into urine then your kidneys cannot clamp down and conserve water when you need to resulting in rapid dehydration. This would be if your sugars are consistently over 250iish.

Not sure if diabetics are particularly prone to it or not, but I don't think it played a factor in my case. As many know, my A1Cs run in the 4.4 to 5.2 range and have been over the last 12 years. Sugar seldom goes above 120.

As far as resuming exercise, any thoughts? I planned to skip any calf exercises for at least a few weeks, but how about exercises for other parts of the body? Are those okay?

Sounds like a common theme with this is going to muscle failure repeatedly... this would be common in the crossfire workouts.

RightWingConspirator said:

---

As far as resuming exercise, any thoughts? I planned to skip any calf exercises for at least a few weeks, but how about exercises for other parts of the body? Are those okay?

---

I had a similar case to zip's wife described above (I'm female). At the time I was very active in crossfit and teaching a spin class. Not hospitalized, no urine color change, but both arms swollen. Doc said 7 days absolutely nothing, then gradually resume. Taught off the bike the week I was told to do nothing. Then I did bike related stuff and gradually returned to lifting.

If I were you I wouldn't do anything calf related until the swelling is gone. Then gradual.

Long term it causes loss of strength, at least it did for me. My arms were never the same, which led to other issues/injury and caused me to eventually quit crossfit.

I would check with the doc who diagnosed you also re: resuming exercise, especially with diabetes.

ILbest of luck