Some people living at low altitudes have trouble breathing, etc, if they visit high altitudes. After a few weeks at high altitudes their bodies tend to adjust and symptoms get better.

However, many have trouble upon returning home. Several studies show that after adjusting to high altitude (>3000 meters / 2 miles) many people have problems lasting 100 days or more after returning to lower altitudes. Symptoms include fatigue, memory loss, headache, back and joint pain, and trouble with digestion and breathing. The trouble is caused by the increase in atmospheric pressure and re-oxygenation.

The research is not clear on the effects of moderate altitude. Have any low-altitude-dwelling warlighters experienced trouble adjusting upon returning home after staying 2 weeks or more at a moderate (~1500 meters / 1 mile) altitude? Please share your experience.

For example: you live in LA, New York, Singapore, Sydney, London or Amsterdam; you visit Denver, Kunming, Brasília or Mexico city; and then you return after 30 days.

EDIT: in this context the term 'de-acclimation' is preferred over 'de-acclimatization'.

Edited 8/27/2017 19:08:31

I can confirm, because when I go to Morocco, I usually stayed there for about 5 to 4 weeks. And when I came back to the Netherlands, I felt tired, and felt a loss of energy.

Do you know the altitude where you stayed in Morocco? How long did your symptoms last?

Although most people in Morocco live somewhat close to sea-level, the high atlas region is often over 3000 meters. This is close to Tibet's altitude, which is the focus of much of the existing research (lots of data is available involving seasonal railway workers from lower parts of China).

Edited 8/27/2017 16:30:50

Are you a researcher or just a curious fellow?

This didn't happen to me when I went into the Rockies for two weeks, but it might just be because I'm young and fit

How high of an altitude are you speaking of here?

3000 meters (9800 feet) is very high.

Thanks for the responses so far.

Trouble with de-acclimation isn't necessarily correlated strongly with cardio fitness, age or general health. To clarify: the problem symptoms aren't happening at high elevation. They're happening after the trip down, and they persist for a long time.

This isn't formal research, it's just for the sake of curiosity.

Edited 8/27/2017 16:29:04

I was up at around 10000 feet for two weeks, when I came down, I was fine.

10000 feet

3050 Metres for people outside of the US. Everyone but you was kind enough to provide international units.

I myself live at an attitude of around 1200 metres and I never experience problems when travelling to Vienna (Inner city at around 180m). Higher attitudes like 1500m+ are not a problem either for me. Even a couple of days at 2500m+ proved to be easy for me.
However I am used to switching attitude alot since I was born and I am also young and physically fit.

Edited 8/27/2017 02:28:43

When I go to Morocco, I go to the Riffian region, which is in the North of Morocco, in Nador.

Nador is very close to sea-level (43 meters). Any symptoms you experienced after your visits were probably not due to de-acclimation from that region.

I've went to Ankara once, when i returned i had a ringing in my head that disappeared in 3 days.

IDK but you should take a look at veterans from Afghanistan. They spend months at high altitudes and most return home. That should be a very large data set.

No need to be an asshole about it Cata. I'm not used to delivering measurements in metric, so I sometimes forget.

@Cruelest: yeah, but there's a lot of other issues that go with them, it may be hard to separate from altitude de-acclimitization

Edited 8/27/2017 16:48:05

Very good points @Cruelest, @Pie. The elevation of Kabul, 1,791 m (5,876 ft), is in the "moderate" range this thread is interested in. Although combat veterans might have overlapping symptoms, non-combat veterans and civilian contractors are potentially an excellent data source.

Do we have any Warlighters that meet this criteria?

Nador is very close to sea-level (43 meters). Any symptoms you experienced after your visits were probably not due to de-acclimation from that region.

Not really.