Sea sickness, chair lift

Just to touch back on topic if thats ok, i will say that i left the Navy due to severe seasickness and suffer badly from all types of motion sickness.
However i had no problems on any chairlift. I think a combination of excitement, messing with my iPod, preparing the lift station, fresh air and just generally watching other skiiers wizz below kept me preoccupied enough not to focus on it.

Dont worry, if i was ok you will be.

The only issue i did have was with the steep Arinsal Gondola, that made me a touch queasy but found the cure was to face up the mountain and focus on the horizon.

Oh and as for nose bleeds. Well i had a massive one, the snow around me resembled a giant Mr.Frosty drinky thing.
But then i did give myself a huge clout with the blunt end of one of my poles during multiple cartwheels!

My sis in law says she has motion sickness on lifts I'm sure that she takes a pill or two which helps :shock:

caron-a wrote:sued, I've been given different advice by two doctors. My youngest gets extremely bad nose bleeds (usually on the slopes as well as at home), one doc told me to let it bleed and another told us to push the nose to the bone on the bleeding side about half way/two thirds up (you can feel where the nose starts to open up). I prefer the latter, it stops it within minutes. He has had it quarterised but it still happens.

So, apart from said nose bleeds, he was very ill after travelling up the funicular in Tignes to the Grande Motte (plied him with water for half an hour and came back down), he's come back from two trips with a chest infection (a two week stint of bronchitis this time) and I have to stand still for a couple of minutes at the top of every lift to wait for the nausea to subside.

why on earth do we do it :shock:

Caron-a,
that sounds really awful! I used to get lots of nose bleeds when I was a child, but they always stopped if I just put pressure on the end of my nose with toilet paper. Your poor son! I used to hate getting nose bleeds.
Is your nausea with lifts because of the altitude problem, or because you're frightened of lifts? I'm a bit confused.

Ally

When "people" bounce on my chairs it get's me queezy.
It's not a silly question, some of my guests get a lil' uneasy.
I'm cool as long as someone doesn't ralph allover my slopes, becuase then I'd have to dig it out.

Kids are more prone to being affected by altitude this may be a gross over-simplification the higher the more the brain swells. Children tend to have less free space inside the skull for the brain to swell into compared to adults who's brains tend to shrink a little with age, alcohol etc.

I know a recent Swiss study showed exactly that but there's a lot less research on the impact of altitude on adolescents than there is on adults. IIRC there was some work in Colorado looking at inter-cranial pressure where no increase was found, it was referenced in another paper which I don't have to hand right now. The last International Society for Mountain Medicine statement I'm pretty sure suggested that AMS incidence in adolescents was around the same as adults, that was a few years back but I don't think they've changed their consensus statement.

The advice we get for taking teenagers to altitude is that there's no significant additional risk, that the symptoms will manifest the same as an adult and that we'd follow the same precautions although there's a caveat to that in that we use diamox for all the group unless is contraindicated.

ise wrote:I know a recent Swiss study showed exactly that but there's a lot less research on the impact of altitude on adolescents than there is on adults. IIRC there was some work in Colorado looking at inter-cranial pressure where no increase was found, it was referenced in another paper which I don't have to hand right now. The last International Society for Mountain Medicine statement I'm pretty sure suggested that AMS incidence in adolescents was around the same as adults, that was a few years back but I don't think they've changed their consensus statement.

The advice we get for taking teenagers to altitude is that there's no significant additional risk, that the symptoms will manifest the same as an adult and that we'd follow the same precautions although there's a caveat to that in that we use diamox for all the group unless is contraindicated.

Ise,
Do you give diamox to everyone before they start climbing (like sea-sick pills) or only when they become ill?

I do seem to be affected by the altitude more than other people - maybe this is because I have such a large brain? :wink:

I found an interesting article about this on travel doctor. I'm pretty sure they injected me with dexamethasone when I had concussion (from falling off my horse). Have you used one of the Gamow bags?

http://www.traveldoctor.co.uk/altitude.htm

Ally