Altitude sickness when skiing?

Try Diamox from a travel clinic
Its used for mountaineers/treckers but some friends have it for high skiing too

Our family went to Colorado a couple of years ago - we anticipated that we might suffer from AS so we purposely went for a bit longer than we normally would to allow us to perhaps have a couple of days off - and sure enough I had to have one and a half days off the slopes and my wife two! As for our two boys......nothing! Perhaps it's an age thing?

I have now added a new symptom of 'altitude sickness' to my list - bloodshot eyes.

I'd noticed it before, but put it down to getting suncream in my eyes. However, this time I noticed my eyes were bloodshot before putting any on. The same thing happened to my daughter as well (at Tignes) and the curious thing is that about an hour after we'd been driving off the mountain back to Geneva our eyes returned to normal.

I asked the optician about it, and he said that it was due to a shortage of oxygen in the eye, and that in response to this the tiny blood vessels were dilating to get more oxygen through the surface of my eye. I didn't know that my eyes could get oxygen from the air!

Also, someone else from our chalet was so badly affected by the altitude up the mountain that she couldn't speak - which alarmed her quite considerably so she came down.

Ally

I often get nosebleeds when stopping at altitude, but it doesnt stop me doing anything.

I do not suffer any symptoms, I have never skied higher than just over 3000m, so that is possibly why :lol:

At 2000m I got a burst blood vessel in one eye! Looked really glamorous- not!! Took about a week to look normal again but never happened since!

Many of these things aren't altitude sickness- the nose symproms & red eyes are more a consquence of the air in the mountains often being very cold & dry so the mucus membranes tend to get dry. The blood flow to the nose increases to warm the air that's being breathed in. If there's any crusty bits inside your nose that break down & it'll bleed that bit more. A little vaseline smeared inside the nose helps greatly.

Get fit (if you are not already) - it's stunning how many people ski who take no other exercise from year to year & wonder why they hurt so much when they do ski. Good technique helps. However a good level of physical fitness means you will get less tired (fall less) & have the muscle strength to support your joints when you do get it wrong, so reducing your chance of getting injured.
Drink enough - heavy exercise in winter gear in dry air means you will loose more fluid. The sweat evapourates easier at altitude so it's not as obvious & the sun can be strong so adjust your fluid intake.

True altitude sickness is a much more serious matter affecting mainly the brain & lungs. The younger you are the more likely you are to be affected by the cerebral effects (age shrinks the brain so it has more space to swell into). The only safe option is to descend & acclimatise. Drugs like Aceozolamide (Diamox) & Viagra may help but are not an alternative to getting down the mountain. Look on them as rescue medications to buy a bit more time to get down in a mountaineering emergency not to allow the unaclimatised to climb higher.
I don't see them having a role in a skiing holiday other than under strict medical direction. I doubt there's any justification for using them in European ski resorts. (other than for their licenced use ) )

Thanks Andymol2 :D

I put my contribution in inverted commas, because I know symptoms like red eyes aren't strictly speaking symptoms of true altitude sickness.

But, we are describing how our bodies malfunction at high altitudes on our ski-ing trips. And I don't really know what else to call it. Even these minor symptoms can be bad enough to stop one from ski-ing (like the girl who had to come off the mountain because her brain stopped working properly and she couldn't speak).

Added together, these symptoms can be quite uncomfortable, and even alarming - red eyes, waking at night, headaches, feeling queasy, mental confusion, nose bleeds, feeling short of oxygen with heavy physical activity (like skating uphill on skis) etc.

Ally