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

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

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