altitude prep
 

Any drugs (general purchase or prescription) that will help prevent
altitude sickness/headache? Planning a trip from 500 ft to 6000-8000 ft
levels.
gr

gr wrote:
Any drugs (general purchase or prescription) that will help prevent
altitude sickness/headache? Planning a trip from 500 ft to 6000-8000 ft
levels.
gr

lots of water, & ibuprofen if you get a headache. i and my housemates
(aka skiboybob and sknyski) do this pretty much every weekend from the
bay area to truckee & nobody has mentioned symptoms...i think 6-8k is
low enough that you won't notice much. last yr i had some insomnia,
but that has gone away & i'm not sure it was alt-related.

there was a useful article in one of the farwestnordic newsletters last
year, at http://www.farwestnordic.org/newslet...cnews_2005.pdf .
I think there was a post on rsn last year where someone mentioned a
prescription drug for altitude...you might search w google groups.

just remember you need more rest, water & carbohydrates than normal,
adjust hr zones down ~8-12 beats & don't knock yourself out the first
day & you should be fine. imho. df

There was a pretty well received study form the University of Colorado
a year or two ago praising the effects of ginko baloba in fighting
altitude sickness. You might want to google it. Although this
interesting site was skeptical.

http://www.high-altitude-medicine.com/

Regards,
Chris Crawford
Denver

Yup, ditto, water, water, water.

After spending last weekend at 8,700 ft, I'm beginning to think that
the effects of altitude aren't linear - i.e. there's some point up to
which you can handle it (coming from sea level) but it gets harder at a
much faster rate after that. I was at 7,000 ft today and felt like I
was at sea level after the misery of ~9k.

6k-8k sounds like our neck of the woods, or maybe Utah....

bt

I don't know if it's Pracetam, but there's a drug banned for
athletes but commonly used by climbers that I thought started with
A..., but goes under the name Diazepan or something like that. It's
very effective, but will have you taking a split breaks more often.
Maybe Chris knows.

Gene

"infiniski" wrote:

gr wrote:
Any drugs (general purchase or prescription) that will help prevent
altitude sickness/headache? Planning a trip from 500 ft to
6000-8000 ft levels.
gr

Piracetam. Cheap. Safe. Available on-line as a supplement now,
because it's paten expired. it's very popular in europe as a mild
brain stimulant.

from Smart Drugs by Dean, Morgenthaler, Fowkes. 1993

"the ability of piracetam to reduce metabolic stress under low-oxygen
conditions was investigated by schaffler and klausnitzer in 1988. the
researchers induced hypoxia (low oxygen levels) in healthy young men
(early 20's to early 30's) by reducing the oxygen content the
laboratory air that they breathed by about half (10.5% instead of 20%
oxygen). this resembled the oxygen supply at an altitude of 5300
meters. they investigated the degree of cognitive impairment and the
ability of piracetam single-doses (1600 to 2400mg) to prevent this
impairment was measured. half of the group were given placebo."

"various tests of reaction time were performed, and n all cases, the
piracetam group performed better. best results were obtained at the
higher doses. The increased breathing rate that is usually seen under
low oxygen conditions was significantly reduced by a single-dose of
piracetam. "oxygen utilization in the brain appears to be
significantly enhanced", the article states. the book also mentions
"increased glucose metabolism stimulation, increased atp turnover,"

schaffler K and Klausnitzer W: randomized placebo-controlled
doubler-blind cross-over study on antihypoxidotic effects of piracetam
using psychophysiological measures in healthy volunteers.
arzneim-forsch 1988 (German medical journal)

The book includes a detailed graph from the journal article. It looks
promising.

side effects: "adverse effects are extremely rare. piracetam has no
known toxicity or contraindications."

this website is good: http://www.ceri.com/noot.htm