Given time, your body can adapt to the decrease in oxygen molecules at a specific altitude. This process is known as acclimatization and generally takes 1-3 days at that altitude.

1. Drink Lots of Water. As you gain altitude, your body tends to lose water and salt faster than you’re used to.
2. Reduce Your Exercise.
3. Get Enough Sleep.
4. Limit Your Alcohol Intake.
5. Increase Your Potassium Levels.
6. Protect Yourself From the Sun.
7. Consume More Calories.
8. Consider Taking Acetazolamide.

If you don’t go down ASAP, it can get lethal. A good thing to have once you go down, and after the altitude sickness goes away, are some tea and chocolate. The tea can settle your stomach, and the chocolate will give you everlasting deliciousness!

Studies show that starting to take ibuprofen 6 hours before climbing to high elevations and then taking it every 6 hours while climbing may help prevent altitude sickness. Ibuprofen may also reduce the symptoms of altitude sickness if you do get it.

The few extra calories someone will use will be a result of increased breathing to get more oxygen into the body, which means increased work by the rib cage and other muscles involved in ventilation.

In one of the most comprehensive studies of its kind, researchers at the University of Colorado School of Medicine in partnership with the Harvard School of Global Health have found that people living at higher altitudes have a lower chance of dying from ischemic heart disease and tend to live longer than others.

Living at higher altitudes seems to be associated with lower mortality from cardiovascular diseases, stroke and certain types of cancer. In contrast mortality from COPD and probably also from lower respiratory tract infections seems to be increased.

Altitude can also increase your metabolism while suppressing your appetite, meaning you’ll have to eat more than you feel like to maintain a neutral energy balance. When people are exposed to altitude for several days or weeks, their bodies begin to adjust (called “acclimation”) to the low-oxygen environment.

The higher you travel, the less oxygen you take in with each breath. The body responds by increasing the heart rate and the amount of blood pumped with each beat. This temporarily increases blood pressure until the body adapts to the lower oxygen level, usually within a couple of days.

Any time you go above 8,000 feet, you can be at risk for altitude sickness.

Treating altitude sickness

• stop and rest where you are.
• do not go any higher for at least 24 to 48 hours.
• if you have a headache, take ibuprofen or paracetamol.
• if you feel sick, take an anti-sickness medicine, such as promethazine.
• make sure you’re drinking enough water.
• do not smoke, drink alcohol, or exercise.

A doctor can give you acetazolamide (Diamox). This speeds up how fast your body gets used to the higher altitude. Nifedipine (Procardia) and dexamethasone are also used for altitude sickness. You may also be able to use oxygen or a specially designed pressure chamber to treat altitude sickness.

You — and they — may have had altitude sickness. Living on the Front Range, even at 5,000 or 6,000 feet, doesn’t make you immune to it, according to Dr.