Discussion: altitude

I read this article about physiological changes at altitude...http://www.thenakedscientists.com/HTML/interviews/...

One thing I noticed is he said peeing a lot was an adaptation to carry away bicarbonate produced by too little CO2 in the blood stream. But he says this would be mostly noticeable in the first day at altitude. Well, towards the end of my two week trip, I was still producing copious amounts, like a half gallon a night. What would be your take on that, personal experience, and a guess to why my physiology is not levelling off O/Co2 levels in bloodstream?

My take is that it speaks to a) a range of "normality" eg adaptation on average takes 3-5 days but varies according to degree and rapidity of low Oxygen stress, and b) concomitant factors such as water loading which you need to offset increased respiratory fluid loses.
On balance I would say it's a more healthy adaptive response than having too little or too concentrated urine.
BTW azetazolamide which is a diuretic works to acidify the blood by increasing urinary clearance of bicarbonate, along with which goes diuresis. So I was also peeing like a trooper!

ah. interesting, thanks.

So this discussion nudged me to look at the WADA list- guess what ? most diuretics including acetazolamide are on the banned list (at all times in and out of comp!). Have stopped taking it anyhow!

Have found, unknowingly, that beer is an excellent source of CO2 for precisely this problem. Thanks for providing justification for it.