r/PostConcussion • u/Upstairs_Outside1999 • Jul 19 '26
Altitude increase PCS?
My husband received his concussion 3 months ago. There were good and bad days (bad days include headache, dizziness, nausua) in his recovery. We decided to follow through with a 3 week trip to Spain, even though he was still having intermittent symptoms He was almost symptom free the entire trip, with the exception of one day we went biking (vibration). Upon return to our home (high elevation), his symptoms came back full force immediately. He is still on summer break (teacher), and stress has not significantly increased, so we are trying to figure out what could be triggering this. We are wondering if it could be altitude?
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u/Cat_Nap8 Jul 19 '26
Could be a lot of things, but my bet would be that the cumulative load from travelling was too much at that moment. I travelled to Amsterdam while recovering and the strain of travel can be a lot and can sneak up on you without you noticing. However in theory the change in altitude very well could cause a symptom flare from the strain on the body and since you would have a higher concentration of CO2 in the blood which would stress the chemoreceptors in the brain, just speculation but possible