I am wondering if anyone has considered or used Diamox for altitude symptoms other than AMS: wind, shortness of breath, endurance, appetite, sleep etc. For me this is an important difference: acclimation for avoiding AMS vs acclimation for more normal or typical responses such as shortness of breath and endurance.
Its important to me because I have never had AMS, but I have always struggled with what I call general acclimation. It just takes me a long time to get my breath at elevation.
Until my JMT TH last year I had never fully acclimated to elevations of even 7500-8500 ft in less than a week. And I had also never really done a high elevation trip without spending at least that amount of time at elevation, so quick acclimation was never an issue.
As I approached my JMT hike, I realized that this was the first time I would be faced with having no time to acclimate before plunging into a 6000 foot vertical start, from YV to Cathedral Pass. The trip of a lifetime, I might add (seriously, until last year, JMT through-hike was my entire bucket list)
Oops.
AHA! thinks I: DIAMOX! In theory, it stimulates the entire acclimation process, which should include the haemoglobin/O2 thing that makes up for low 02 at altitude, which manifests in things other than AMS, like getting winded by tying your shoes or walking up half a flight of stairs to the dining hall, right? So, even though I don't need it for AMS, it should still work for what I call GENERAL acclimation.
So, I started on the 2x125 mg/D Diamox regimen two days before hitting the TH at Happy Isles, three days before crossing above 6000 feet (LYV) and four days before reaching 8500 ft (Sunrise). Five days before hitting Cathedral at 9700 ( according to my map, you actually top out at 10k before the pass).
That's some serious elevation gain in the first couple of days.
If Diamox can knock out AMS, it ought to be able to take the edge right off that elevation gain, right?
AS far as I could tell, the Diamox did not one damn thing for my GENERAL acclimation. I had been training for a year, and could do 15 minute miles carrying 40 lbs at sea level all day long by the time I hit the TH. That was my training regimen. So if I had endurance problems it was not my general conditioning: I took that out of the equation. The only variable was elevation.
On the actual trail, I did not feel anything like my sea level conditioning until 6 days in, leaving Red's, and never actually matched that 4 mph pace until days after that.
SO, this leaves me wondering: if the mechanism of Diamox is to induce the acclimation process, why does it seem to ward off AMS but not have any effect on other acclimation factors? Or does it?
Harvey, are you reading?
