High Altitude

[joyagh]

I'm sure this has been covered, but I went to 7500 feet in the rockies yesterday and felt great! no tachy, minimal dypsnea, and no pulse/BP problems. Is that weird? I thought altitute would exacerbate symptoms, but I felt better!

feeling like crap now back at 5000 ft.

[hippychic258]

High altitude has always made me worse.

[ddschool]

I felt better too, much fewer episodes than at home.

Another example is Michael J Fox-he had no Parkinsons symptoms when he went to the Himalayas.

[spinner]

many years before i was diagnosed with sleep apnea i lived at high altitude. I had immediate problems and id bet it was early onset of snoring/apnea. But the doctor thought it was just some other problem. Back then getting help for apnea from a regular doctor

was even harder than today. To make matters worse, i was a natural backsleeper and thought that was healthy for me. I was snoring most likely and blamed it on the altitude. Like another post said that condition may well have caused POTS -eventually. Not possible to know for sure.

[MomtoGiuliana]

I feel worse, initially, at high altitude and I would think most of us would b.c of the reduced oxygen. However, personally I do not notice symptoms getting worse until I get to around 9,000 to 10,000 ft (after having been at sea level only days before). The two times I have gone to 14,000+ ft (from much lower altitude--no time to adjust) I felt absolutely horrible...headache, racing heart, weakness. But in one case I was pretty much stuck there (it was a trip to Peru and I had no idea I would have a severe reaction--and I was able to just rest in a hotel fortunately) and after 2-3 days I did start to adjust and feel better. (Unfortunately I missed out on part of a great trip )

The issue with altitude (below 18,000 ft) is adjusting to it. Going just a couple thousand ft higher from where you are already adjusted to is not likely to affect you from what I understand. It's the extreme changes that challenge the body the most. some people's bodies adjust well others don't. And it can't always be predicted who can adjust quickly and who cannot. Even athletes can have problems when going from sea level to 10,000 ft. It's a combination of th drop in air density and the increase in water vapor loss from the lungs. Anything that dehydrates the body or reduces available oxygen is generally not good for POTS patients!

[Lemons2lemonade]

The same happens to me. A good reason for this might be that high altitude increases your blood volume due to less oxygen availability. One more interesting thing is that i got pots 3 months after visiting denver for a week...

[joyagh]

interesting. it's got to have something to do with the increased blood volume. I though maybe the reduced atmospheric pressure opened my veins more allowing for easier circulation. I've heard high alt is good for high BP - it relaxes the veins and makes more room for the blood, thus reducing the pressure in the veins/arteries. hmmm.

[MomtoGiuliana]

Interesting that anyone would feel better, although perhaps the increase in bp makes some feel better. The body of course adapts but it takes several days. Again, I think effects of altitude are noticed when there are fairly extreme changes in altitude, more than just a few thousand ft.

http://anthro.paloma...apt/adapt_3.htm

When we travel to high mountain areas, our bodies initially develop inefficient physiological responses. There is an increase in breathing and heart rate to as much as double, even while resting. Pulse rate and blood pressure go up sharply as our hearts pump harder to get more oxygen to the cells. These are stressful changes, especially for people with weak hearts.

[Guest maia]

High altitude has been proven to increase cardiac hormones... I posted something earlier today about these and an article i found from a researcher working on cancer who found these cardiac hormones case symptoms of pots...