Feeling dizzy and nauseous on the slopes? You might have ski sickness

Some skiers experience lightheadedness and disorientation while skiing downhill. Common symptoms include dizziness, fatigue, and in more severe cases, vomiting. This little-known condition, known as ski sickness, is akin to motion sickness and seasickness. Here’s what we know.

At the start of this year’s ski season, the weather conditions were poor. It was a “white day”–thick fog blanketed the slopes, reducing visibility to just a few yards. The flat light and fog made it nearly impossible to distinguish shapes, apart from the occasional gate pole. The boundary between snow and sky had vanished, disrupting my spatial awareness and making it difficult to gauge my direction, speed, and angle to the ground.

As we continued our descent, my ski companions developed nausea, while I felt faint and repeatedly lost my balance. Even after leaving the slopes, my dizziness and fatigue persisted for several hours. We had all experienced ski sickness, a physiological reaction similar to motion sickness. Why do some skiers experience these symptoms?

Ski sickness: a form of motion sickness

It is important to distinguish ski sickness from acute mountain sickness, a condition caused by reduced oxygen availability at high elevation, regardless of weather conditions.

Ski sickness is a variant of kinetosis, the medical term for motion sickness and seasickness. Its symptoms include dizziness, drowsiness, and pallor (so-called “neurovegetative” symptoms), which can escalate to nausea and, in severe cases, vomiting.

Susceptibility to kinetosis–and by extension to ski sickness–varies greatly from person to person.

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