What can you do for altitude sickness??

John little

John little

New member
May 11, 2014
30
Hey guys I drive to colorado past 2 yrs and the 1st 2 days I\'m sick as a dog. I am so anxious to get there it\'s pretty much a straight drive from south oklahoma to colorado powered by beef jerky and mt dew. Get there throw camp together shoot a few shots to make sure bow is good and by 24 hrs later I\'m sick. I\'ve seen other people there that say its altitude sickness. I know I need to eat good on the drive out but I\'m 2 pumped and ready to get there. Somebody please help with this :thewave:
 
Drink lots of water the day before you hit altitude, and everyday your there.

What altitude are you camping/hunting at? It\'s better to spend a day at medium altitude before going up to max altitude. two days is even better.

I live at 8000ft, and still need time to adjust to 11,000ft where I hut and scout. I don\'t get sick, but I don\'t feel good, and I have no energy the first day. It takes me a week before I actually feel normal. I\'m ok after two days, but not normal for a week.

So, you can see how you have to adjust coming from a lower altitude. What altitude do you live at?
 
First, some definitions.

You want to ACCLIMATIZE. Often, people talk about ADAPTATION. There\'s a difference. The former is what occurs over the first couple weeks at altitude, and the second occurs over longer periods and even over generations. Acclimatization takes place over several days. If it happens suddenly, like a high-altitude pressure problem in an airplane, you\'d die. But give the body a few days, and it can survive. That tells you something (the slower the better.)

The ability to Acclimatize depends on some genetic issues that either are there, or they aren\'t. When you first get to altitude, for instance, your brain will recognize this and increase your ventilation rate. But some people recognize this well, and some don\'t. You can\'t change your genetic ability to react to lower oxygen levels, but you can avoid doing things that make it worse (alcohol, for instance. And, in Colorado, I suppose there are other things.) You can do things that help increase ventilation (caffeine, for instance).

The ability to Acclimatize depends not only on internal, genetic factors, but on other issues as well, such as rate of ascent. Slowing the rate of ascent as much as you can will help. Many people can\'t do that ... they want to go to altitude to hunt, ski, or they have to go for work, or they are deployed there. But the slower the better. The warmer, the better, too. You can\'t control that, I know.

People ask about pills. Pills are available that will help. Ginko, as Brad said, helps. Diamox is a prescription drug that helps. Most of the time, meds are used for people who have a history of altitude-related illness, or they have to ascend quickly for some reason.

What Pete said is right ... hydration is real important, but not because it prevents the illness, but because it helps treat the effects of the illness. You\'re still ill.

Most of the effects of what people call \"altitude illness\" are really just the effects of having lower oxygen saturation than they are used to. In other words, tiredness, poor sleep, grumpiness, and shortness of breath. Basically, it\'s like getting sleep apnea. But familiarize yourself with the more serious forms of the illness (Acute Mountain Illness, High Altitude Cerebral Edema, and High Altitude Pulmonary Edema.) You will probably not see them, but they\'re nice to know about if you do!
 
\"cnelk\" said:
Eat lots of pasta and take Ginko Bilbao prior to your hunt helps alot
Click to expand...

The Ginko Bilbao worked for me... I didn\'t ever try the pasta... :mrgreen: :mrgreen:
 
Interesting what you said about caffeine John. I always sort of avoided it at altitude, because I know it\'s a mild diuretic, and i\'m always trying to stay hydrated.

With that said I will take energy drinks now and then which have caffeine. The effect I get is greater than taking the drinks at lower altitude. It\'s noticeable for me. So caffeine increases ventilation. That must be what i\'m feeling, and is more positive than what I might lose in hydration from caffeine. I can always drink more water to make up for the caffeine.
 
You really might consider Diamox. It\'s \"success rate\" is about twice that of Ginko, though you have to get a prescription. But talk it over with your doctor and see about it. It\'s cheap stuff. Don\'t be surprised if a doctor in Oklahoma isn\'t real comfortable with it ... it\'s not an everyday kind of thing ... tell them you are fine waiting to hear back about what they think, giving them time to make sure it\'s right for you.

The other thing -- while you are at your doctor\'s office -- is to ask if there\'s anything about any medicines you might take that would impact altitude issues. Or any medical history that is important.
 
We camped at like 12,000 ft I think. Not positive. The 1st day I was good. I am in very good shape and thought I would be ok but the 1st night I threw up all night. A case of Gatorade and a bunch of water I was barely in the woods til day 3. A few locals stopped at our camp and could tell I wasn\'t doing so good. They recommend that I go to a lower elevation. We actually got hit with a bunch of snow and ended up moving down the mountain so we could hunt. I\'m just trying to prepare a little better for this yr. any advice is greatly appreciated everyone.. All the locals there seemed really nice. One guy was leaving and told me about a place down low to hunt. We got in elk almost everyday. (Almost)
 
If you were really hunting at 12,000, you must have seen some goats, huh?

I live in the Denver area and get into the mountains quite a bit. In 2007, I did a goat/sheep count in g17 down near Mount Massive. I packed into an area and set up camp at 12,770\'. I was sick the entire 3 days with altitude sickness.

You really don\'t need to hunt elk at that high. There are more elk below 9,000\' than above it, especially in Sept.
 
I would talk to a doc. You get it bad. I think the affects are cumulative so it won\'t get better. My buddy had to shoot a multiethnic while breathing from an ox tank. He eats better gets super hydrated and takes pills the doc gives him five days before our trips.
 
Being from Colorado I suppose I\'m not supposed to get altitude sickness. Spending nearly the entire year at around 4500 feet, though, and then suddenly increasing that to 11000 at hunting season does take a toll. I don\'t throw up, but I go through the physical exhaustion and feelings of vertigo and imbalance. It usually clears up after a day or two. I definitely recommend staying hydrated and getting that fluid level up well in advance of your hunt. Like John said, I\'m still sick, just treating the symptoms with fluids, but if that\'s what keeps me in the game, I\'m all for it.
 
I could comment on this big time. But I\'m sure my post would just get edited or deleted. So lets just say I know of a fairly well known elk hunter that got altitude sickness so bad that he had to spend a night in the hospital in Leadville, Colorado. 11,000 ft. was too much for him. It can happen to anyone.

I live at 6500 ft. But at 10,000, I\'m sucking for air like crazy on the uphill climbs. But a mild headache is about the worse symptom I\'ve encountered. Just lucky I guess!
 
What did the individual do that caused him to need hospitalization? Would someone need to spend a week at 10,000 feet, taking it easy, to get acclimated, before they could get out and hunt?
 
Swede ... ability to acclimate depends on several things ... some you can change, and some you are born with.

1. Genetic things:
a. Increased respiratory drive
b. hemoglobin-oxygen disassociation curve
c. increased cardiac output in response to low oxygen levels
d. blood pressure adaptation in the lungs
e. your ability to deal with the acid-base changes using your kidneys

2. Environmental things
a. rate of ascent
b. medicines or other drugs that influence the genetic stuff (alcohol, caffeine, etc.)
c. other illnesses that make oxygenation tough -- sleep apnea and COPD

Think of acclimatization as this:

Your body has a problem. There\'s lower oxygen levels in the air, but you have to get the same amount of oxygen delivered to your tissues. There are a number of changes like increased breathing rate and changes in the blood pressure in the lungs and even chemical changes in the hemoglobin and the very small blood vessels that make oxygen delivery easier. All of these changes have consequences, though, like changing the acid-base balance of your blood. Therefore, they have to be done slowly. Most people will acclimatize quickly, over 48-72 hours, but some are faster and some are slower. That\'s where your history of altitude troubles tells you what to do.

Pills like Ginko and Diamox help off-set the negative consequences so that you can adapt faster.

Think of adaptation as this:

Now that your are acclimatized, you want to turn off some of these responses, so you make more hemoglobin to carry more oxygen. This is something that occurs over weeks to months, though. The only way around this is blood-doping.

I\'d say that the people who need to worry about altitude the most would be:

1. People who have had trouble before
2. People who have oxygen troubles, like sleep apnea or COPD
3. If you snore a lot, you may have sleep apnea. It may not be a problem at 500 feet, but at 10,000 feet it may be a deal-killer. Oxygen levels at altitude drop most during sleep.

Interestingly, humans are not the only species that has trouble. I don\'t know a lot about it, but there are specific breeds of cattle that can not be mountain range cattle in the summer. They die. It was never really a problem in the past, because cattle were driven up, but now they are literally \"driven\" up, in a truck! Horses, for the most part, seem to do very well with rapid ascent. Horses, humans, and dogs are about the only terrestrial animals that change altitude quickly ... because we\'re the only ones allowed in cars! And ... rate of ascent is the biggest risk factor.
 
John..........I have a question for you. As i\'ve said I live at 8000 ft. I hunt and hike at 11,000ft, or right under timberline. It only takes me 25 min to go from 8000ft to 11,000ft. I don\'t camp, so i\'m only at 11,000 ft for a day at a time. Am I adjusting to the altitude by going back and forth like I am? What if there\'s a 2-3 days between going up? Have I lost all acclimation?
 
Yes, you are actually \"adapting\" to repeated \"acclimatizing\" ...

Think of weight lifting ... with repeated exposure to a stress, your body slowly adapts and soon it is not a stress anymore.

Only instead of benching 150 pounds 10 times, you get used to acclimatizing to a drop in partial pressure of oxygen that may be 20 mmHg. Climbers do this ... ascend/descend, repeat, repeat, repeat, so that they can handle longer periods of exposure.

Now, if you came from sea level to 8000\' and tried that, you may not do as well, because then you\'d be acclimatizing for the first time ... like the skinny guy who goes to the gym for the first time. There\'s a price to pay for that. In the gym, it\'s muscle pain the next day that you pay with. In the mountains, you just feel like you have a hangover.
 
Ok good. I thought as the summer goes on I feel better at altitude, but I wanted to make sure I wasn\'t imagining it.
 
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