Is it hard to breathe in Denver? (Telluride: live, place)

[livecontent]

Ah, there is an advantage. If you live here for a number of years, your body must build up more red corpuscles to deal with the thinner air. When I go down to sea level, I have much more energy. Has anybody else noticed the difference???

Is it not the reason, Olympic Athletes train in Colorado Springs? It is legal blood doping.

Livecontent

[Legs1357]

When I played volleyball and I would travel to sea-level I definitely noticed a difference. It definitely gives you an advantage if others come to Colorado to compete too. There's a huge tournament, Crossroads, in Denver every year and I would bet if you asked all of the teams from out-of-state they would tell you they have a harder time...several people definitely told me that.

[BarryK123]

Originally Posted by livecontent

If you live here for a number of years, your body must build up more red corpuscles to deal with the thinner air.

There are 2 phases to adaptation to altitude:
1. Acid-base balance - the kidneys compensate for the increase in blood pH due to hyperventilating (blowing off more carbon dioxide). The pH imbalance is what causes the headaches, etc., and this takes about a week.

2. The compensatory increase in red blood cells in response to the lower oxygen level, caused by the hormone erythropoetin (EPO). This takes about a month.[/quote]

Originally Posted by livecontent

Is it not the reason, Olympic Athletes train in Colorado Springs? It is legal blood doping.

Sure is.

[Moonwalkr]

If you are on oxygen, continue using your oxygen and you should be fine. If you are borderline oxygen, you may need supplemental depending on what sort of physical activity you'll be engaging in. I see a lot of pulmonary patients from out of state. Most people requiring oxygen aren't the overyly strenuous types anyway. Enjoy your visit!

[ebeth79]

We moved here a month ago, and I have had no side effects - other than a stuffier than normal nose. I think you should be fine. I was told exactly what several posters here have listed: drink plenty of water, take a pill for headaches (thank God I didn't suffer them), and take it easy (i.e. not too strenuous exercise right off the bat). Have adjusted just fine. I did get winded going up and down the stairs in the house but all and all didn't have any side effects that I heard about before coming. Good luck and have a great trip!

[cpm725]

It's bad when you fly in from sea-level, then directly from the airport drive to towns like Vail or Aspen. I, a Denver area native, recently went to Lake Dillon up in the mountains. It's altitude is around 9,000 feet, and I had a very hard time with headaches and shortness of breath. Like the other person said, the aridity is more of a factor. Drink a ton of water

[cpm725]

On the other hand, if you live in Denver and travel to somewhere at sea-level, you are able to be more physically active and have a much higher endurance. Why do you think many Olympic athletes train in Colorado?

[fierce_flawless]

My family flew from Tx to Denver in March of 09. Even though it was "just Denver", we all felt it. For 4 of us, we felt normal within a day or two. For my 17 year old son, he was miserable the entire time we were there, with headaches, difficulty breathing, nausea, the works.

When we drove to higher elevations we felt the effects. When we went up to the top of Pike's Peak, we ALL were miserable by the time we reached the top (took the train)... our misery wasn't helped by the overheated train cars... but all in all, while beautiful and breathtaking.. I wish we'd saved our money.

Anyway, some are bothered, some aren't. I know my mom had no problems but she and her friend drove from Tx to CO so the change was gradual. I think we'll do that next time.

[MantaRay]

We flew from South Carolina to Denver in fall 2007, and for the most part we didn't have problems breathing, and we were doing a decent amount of walking. The one time we REALLY felt the difficulty was when we visited Red Rocks Park/Amphitheater. It was about the end of the week, probably something like Wednesday or Thursday on a Saturday-to-Saturday vacation, and when we parked at the top of the amphitheater and got out and walked to it, we were short of breath and had to stop for a moment. We had to take the amphitheater stairs kinda slowly too. It felt sort of what I would think being elderly is like. Oddly, we felt ok the third day there (Monday) when we went to Rocky Mountain National Park. But we really didn't walk very much while there, either. We did walk a couple miles around the Stapleton development and walked a lot downtown on multiple days without much of any problem breathing. But man, Red Rocks sure hit us like a ton of bricks. Come to think of it, we had to take Garden of the Gods pretty slowly too.

[fosho303]

I've lived in Denver all my life and I never had trouble breathing, but then again- I'm very used to it. You always need to drink water, even people used to the altitude, and sometimes headaches come around. In the mountains these rules apply even more so. 'Course, if you come from an even higher altitude than 5,280 feet- there won't be any problem at all. Denver really isn't that bad in general, just take it easy for the first few days or so.