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skidawg
Apr 24, 2005, 2:12 AM
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My question is about altitude, and if there is a way to better prepare for it. I am wondering if there are ways to make your lungs better addaptable to lower oxygen levels. Is there a way to slightly increase lung capacity, efficiency in taking in oxygen etc...heh, I really don't know much when it comes to biology (basics like hemogloben and stuff of course) but is there a way to prepare your body for higher altitudes...even if it is just slightly?
thanks
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boardline22
Apr 24, 2005, 2:33 AM
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take some viagra
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ron_burgandy
Apr 24, 2005, 2:52 AM
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work out... get in better shape.
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micronut
Apr 24, 2005, 2:59 AM
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drink a shit ton of water while driving to, approaching, and climbing the peaks and you'll be so much better off. in other words, PRE-Hydrate.
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climberfrommi
Apr 24, 2005, 4:18 AM
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Exercise at high altitudes and rest at low altitudes
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takanhase
Apr 24, 2005, 8:00 AM
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The best thing that has worked for me is Acclimate, acclimate and oh did I say acclimate! Try some lower altitude climbs. for instance if your goal is to reach 18,000 try a climb at 15,000 then 16-17,000 ect... the more time your body has to get used to less oxygen the less of a headache/puke fest you will suffer. Also if you suffer from the basic symptoms of A.M.S drink a quart of water; if you are still suffering head for a lower elevation and drink a quart of water, you'll feel better. I don’t know if this helps or not but the other thing that will help is if you are in the process of a major trip at a high altitude then improve your cardio, the more your body is used to functioning at peak level the more it will help you with suffering in general... and abstain from alcohol at high altitudes it will just cause more problems. Good luck.
Mike
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paulraphael
Apr 25, 2005, 4:18 AM
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In reply to: Exercise at high altitudes and rest at low altitudes
This is about it.
Besides various drugs (and Viagra, a vasodilator, may well be one of them), there's little that helps besides aclimatization. You lose the effects of it very quickly, so climbing a high mountain today will do little to help you adapt a month from now.
Some considerations:
Experience at altitude probably won't help physically, but it will help you predict how your body will respond to altitude in the future. There may still be surprises, but you'll be better prepared psychologically if you get some high altitude miles under your belt.
Being in good shape will not help you aclimatize, but all else being equal, it's obiously better to be in shape.
You'll never be hydrated enough on a high altitude climb, but the more you do to minimize dehydration, and to keep yourself nourished, the better you'll do. Experiment with food. Things you love at low altitudes may gross you out at high altitude, and encourage you to undereat. Some people find themselves craving fatty foods, or bland foods, or other things they don't normally like.
Learn everything you can about any drugs and supplements that you take, and avoid ones that are vasoconstrictors or that might slow your metabolism while you sleep. Be wary of caffeine and ephedra. Vasodilators like aspirin and garlic may help.
Take symptoms seriously. Learn to recognize signs of high altitude pulmonary and cerebral edema, and get down at all cost if you think you might have either. Fast action can mean the difference between walking down or being carried out in a bag.
Read recent research on PubMed ...there are new things being discovered all the time.
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reynolcma
Apr 25, 2005, 4:29 AM
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Training will work wonders. It increases lung capacity as well as the efficiency of your lungs, heart, and muscles. It doesn't matter so much what yo udo, but some combination of aerobic (running, swimming, etc) and anaerobic (weightl lifting) work woudl be good, with much more emphasis on the aerobic part.
Diamox is a drug that some use to help acclimatization. From what little I know about it, I think it is more useful in the early stages of a trip (i.e. start taking it the first day or even the day before you arrive at altitude). Basically, it pushes your body into a metabolic acidosis, which is your bodies normal compensatory response to altitude.
But before you worry about any drugs, train alot.
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cliffmonkey2003
Apr 25, 2005, 4:30 AM
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I read somewhere once that moderate and sustained aerobic exercise, like backpacking, will make your body produce more capillaries. This is all just from memory, but I guess having more capillaries makes more efficient use of the oxygen in one's blood. So the article (I think it was a magazine article from a few years ago) maintains that backpacking, or exercise like it and even at low altitudes, will better prepare your body for acclimitization at higher altitudes. So besides some cartiledge in your knees, you've nothing to lose from going out and hitting some trails.
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nonick
Apr 25, 2005, 5:41 AM
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Being fit is just one aspect of adapting to altitude.
The real key is to acclimatize properly. Textbooks will tell you that above a certain altitude you should only gain so much height in one day. In practice it never works. The best thing is to climb high, sleep low, or spend some time at moderate altitude ( 3000 m) before going further up. AMS is common while adapting to altitude, however if youhave the umbles ( grumble, fumble, mumble etc.), its a sure sign of not adapting well.
Diet is very important on altitude. Fatty foods are hard to digest, hence go for carbs and proteins. Hydrate yourself at ALL times, it won't help much if you drink 4 lts of water in the evening and not have any during the day. Sherpas recommend eating garlic, though I don't know what effect that would have.
REgarding drugs, personally I would avoid them unless absolutely necessary. I've read that once you have Diamox you require to have it during the entire time you spend on high altitude. If you must use Diamox, take it for two days on low altitude before using it on high altitude.
Diamox is a diuretic, which means it will make you urinate more. Beware of dehydration because of that.
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esoj00
Apr 28, 2005, 4:44 AM
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I climbed Cotopaxi just under 20,000 with zero acclimatization, i came from sea level the same day and summited within 24 hours, true it hurt like a bitch but I proved to myself I could do it, ive used diamox on other climbs and that helps out.
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nonick
Apr 28, 2005, 5:41 AM
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Eso,
Either your extremly lucky or just adapt very well to altitude. For the rest of us mere mortals, acclimatisation is the recommended approach.
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adeptus
Apr 28, 2005, 6:49 AM
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I was at a lecture with a doctor doing new studies on altitude acclimatization. His advice was to gradually progress to 5000 meters and then stay there for two weeks, because the body doesn’t actually acclimatise to a greater altitude. After that period you should be able to go to 8000 meters with out getting sick!
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tempestwind
Apr 28, 2005, 12:43 PM
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In reply to: take some viagra
. :lol: :lol: :lol:
I know where to hang the flag when i summit.
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graniteboy
Apr 28, 2005, 7:33 PM
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eso: I've been involved in more than a few rescues of people with your careless attitude about altitude. Did you ever consider that when you get altitude sickness from not acclimatizing, you're risking other people's lives when they have to save your ass on the mountain? Probably not...None of the people I've carried off of big mountains ever thought about that before they ended up in a stokes.
At any rate...anyone interested in altitude climbing should read Dr peter Hackett's great books on altitude sickness and acclimation.
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esoj00
Apr 28, 2005, 7:52 PM
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graniteboy: I completly understand your point, i myself have helped carry people down these mountains. The other fact that I probably should of said is that I was born at 13,000ft and have climbed over 20,000ft many many times, i know my own limits, and my body adapts extremly well to altitude. I probably should of said this before but i agree with your point and its very valid. Never underestimate anything. But when youve done the same mountain several times before you can get a feel on how your body reacts.
jm
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guanoboy
Apr 28, 2005, 8:29 PM
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I'm no expert, but i know that it takes your body two weeks to recycle all of your red blood cells (into bile which you poop out). If you are at elevation your body increases red blood cell production to allow your body to carry more oxygen. I believe your body starts this process within minutes or hours of being at elevation, but because this process is gradual and because your body is constantly degrading red blood cells it takes about two weeks for your body to attain the new high elevation / high blood cell count. I have used aspirin at high elevations because aspirin thins your blood. It does wonders for elevation sickness because as your red blood cell count increases your blood becomes more viscous and harder to pump through your body: thinner blood with a lot of red blood cells feels a lot better. As an aside, blood doping works on the same principal. Athletes who dope with their own blood train at altitude or sleep in a high nitrogen tent to gain a high red blood cell count. Then they remove some blood and put it back in before a competition.
That is what i know of acclimatization. I don't think anyone knows even that much about triggers of elevation sickness and edema. I know from personal experience that I have felt both good and bad at the same place on a mountain at different times regardless of fitness level.
I will agree that the better your aerobic conditioning the better off you will be in general, but then again you never know when you will get sick.
best
andrew
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mainline
Apr 29, 2005, 12:59 AM
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Diamox works because as you gain altitude, you start breathing harder. Breathing harder increases the throughput of air so that more oxygen and CO2 are exchanged in the lungs. Now lack of oxygen leads to hyperventilation as the first adaptation. This in turns leads to a loss of CO2 from the blood, turning it alkaline. This acts as a brake on hyperventilation so that the extra oxygen intake is slowed; bad news. Another, slower, mechanism to keep the blood pH neutral is by secreting bicarbonate in the kidneys. Urine output is then increased, and more water must be drunk. Diamox inhibits the first mechanism, encouraging the second mechanism. It inhibits carbonic anhydrase, the enzyme that catalyzes the reaction of CO2 with water to form carbonic acid, and the net result is a metabolic acidosis which stimulates ventilation.
Or so my sister says. She's in her first year of med school. :shock:
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paulraphael
Apr 29, 2005, 2:38 PM
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In reply to: II know from personal experience that I have felt both good and bad at the same place on a mountain at different times regardless of fitness level. I will agree that the better your aerobic conditioning the better off you will be in general, but then again you never know when you will get sick. best andrew
What you're saying echoes what I've seen in formal studies: fitness level does not pedict how well someone will do at altitude. Studies done on elite hight altitude climbers have found a huge range of fitness levels (ranging from couch potato level to near elite endurance athlete level). No one has found any correlation between that level and the climber's chance of success on a high peak.
Everyone's measured VO2 max (measure of maximimum aerobic capacity, in mililiters of oxygen per kilo of bodyweight per minute) drops precipitously at extreme altitude. Typical numbers are 10-15 ml/kg-m. To put this in perspective, at sea level typical numbers are in the 40s for untrained people, 50s-60s for trained people, and 70s-80s for elite cyclists and xc skiers. Your body requires about 7ml/kg-m just to stay awake. So if your max is suddenly less than twice that, you can imagine how impaired you'd feel at 8000 meters.
It's possible that those who do extrememly well at altitude somehow lose less capacity when they go high, and that for whatever reason this has little to do with what their capacity is at sea level. I remember reading that Reinhold Messner tested around 50 or 60 ml/kg-m at sea level ... like a decent weekend athlete. But no one tested him at altitute. It's possible that for unknown reasons he was able to hold on to much more of his capacity than the average joe.
None of this has anything to do with acute mountain sickness. They still don't have a good predictor of who will get it. They do know that being in good shape will not magically make you less suceptible.
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graniteboy
Apr 29, 2005, 8:29 PM
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As Hackett says: it's probable that experience plays a significant role: you know what not to do if you've spent more time at altitude. You're more likely to remain hydrated, not eat foods that disagree with you up high, etc. Personally, I never find that proteins and fats affect me much at altitude, like they do most people. I thrive on fats for whatever long grind I throw at myself, and have more reserve. But that's just on the "Lowly" Denali. Only 20,000 feet. Only the equivalent of 23,000 in the karakorum.
SO: Here's to being an old geezer who climbs young pups into the ground for the pure sadism of it all, and then eats their food when they're too nauseous.
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lehrski
May 5, 2005, 2:02 AM
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Fitness is no predictor of AMS and there seems to be a strong genetic component to the relative decrease of VO2 max with altitude. Although training won't do anything towards preventing AMS, it doesn't hurt to train VO2 max to increase oxygen carrying capacity a and to improve how functional you are in spite of the altitude. Intervals ie running or on a bike a good way to do this.
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cruxmonger
May 13, 2005, 9:19 PM
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What should I look out for on Grand Teton? I have never been on a mountain before (I am a Great Plains flatlander) and all of this talk is making me a bit nervous. I have been training specifically for the ascent for the last month or so, mostly running. Anyway, what precautions should we be taking? Should we try to summit in one to two days, should we take our time, or should we make that decision when we are on the mountain?
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graniteboy
May 13, 2005, 9:22 PM
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climb something shorter in the region a couple days before you do your "big" climb, and spend some time sleeping at medium elevations relative to your summit. Read hackett's books.
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maracas
May 13, 2005, 10:06 PM
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Simple question from an elevation rookie.
We want to hike up a 3,700 mt (12,100 ft) during the weekend. Parking is at around 2,000 mt (6,500 ft). Our intention is to sleep at the top.
http://www.bettercamper.com/show/mountain_link.pl/mountain_id/2735
Do you think there is any acclimatization needed for that peak during a weekend?
It is my first time hiking there, so I do not have a clue. I am reasonably fit.
Other people have done it in a similar fashion, but I want to play it safe.
Thanks in advance.
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esoj00
May 14, 2005, 1:46 AM
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My personal opinion is that you dont need to do anything special until 18000 bellow that theres oxygen galore
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