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Know if You Have Altitude Sickness and When to Worry

From UCHealth

Stewardship Tuesday, February 4, 2025

Last time you went skiing in Vail, you had a headache all day and didn’t sleep well that night. When your relatives from Florida came to visit last summer and got sick up in Aspen, it probably wasn’t a bug. 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. Todd Bull, medical director of the UCHealth Comprehensive Lung and Breathing Program located on the Anschutz Medical Campus in Metro Denver. Bull is also the director of UCHealth’s Pulmonary Vascular Disease – Anschutz Medical Campus program and oversees the High Altitude Clinic within the PVD program.

“Many people in Colorado experience various stages of altitude sickness every day. You can get it even just going from Denver to 10,000 or 11,000 feet,” said Bull, a Grand Junction native.

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