thoughts from dave

A close-up of a doctor's white lab coat with a signing pen and a penlight on its packet and a stethoscope bell.

Notes From Dr. Gray About Altitude Sickness

Dr. Gray is a friend and also the mobile doctor in town. He deals with a lot of issues which mostly have to do with altitude sickness. Here’s a couple of tips.

Drink water! Coming to high elevation can be hard on your body and heart. If you are drinking alcohol make sure to add water to the mix. You’re dehydrated from the altitude and alcohol makes it worse.

The big thing though is don’t eat a big meal before bed. What happens here is a lot of people travel here and get in late and are hungry. But eating a big meal and drinking shortly before bed can cause your heart to work to digest your food. This is particularly a problem at high elevation because your heart needs to be relaxing during sleep in order to help rejuvenate the oxygen in your body. If you have a lot of food in your system, it is working hard to digest that food when it should be relaxing. This can cause you to have poor rest, which will affect your performance the next day. So eat a small amount of food for your night time meal and get your big meal in just after skiing and maybe just a light healthy snack within a few hours of sleeping!