|
|
|
|
Articles
back
Mountain Sickness the Bane of Climbers
When it comes to vacations, Ed Davis prefers adventure with a dose of peril.
Take his latest trip: He climbed an 18,353-foot neighbor of Mt. Everest, then
rode in the first motorcycle tour the Chinese have allowed into Tibet.
So while growing numbers of people are trekking through Nepal and Tibet, the
Harris Methodist Fort Worth Hospital pharmacist made his hike a little more
grueling than most. But one thing he shared with others was altitude illness,
which can lead to death if not properly handled.
"I had some trouble with the altitude," Davis tells us. "I had acute mountain
sickness. I walked 12 and a half hours that day to get to a lower altitude and
get to a clinic. I think I may have had some pulmonary edema and some cerebral
edema. I had a splitting headache and was having some trouble standing up."
Experts say that 75% of all people who go to elevations above 10,000 feet will
have at least mild symptoms of mountain sickness. "Even Sir Edmund Hillary
experienced this," says Benjamin Levine, MD, who helped run the Himalayan
Rescue Association Medical Clinic in 1986. He currently is director of the
Institute for Exercise and Environmental Medicine (IEEM) at Presbyterian
Hospital of Dallas, where he does altitude research.
The 51-year-old Davis walked eight hours a day during the Nepal trek, where he
climbed Kala Pattar. Unlike many travelers to the area, he carried his own pack
rather than having a porter, and had only a guide for company. He has made
adventure trips for many years, including scuba diving around the world and
motorcycle riding across China, Vietnam, Thailand, and Malaysia. He'd been in
Nepal before, on a trip to India, but this was a new adventure.
"I wanted to be in one of the first motorcycle groups in Tibet, and I wanted to
see the Potala Palace, which was the home of the Dali Lama until China ran him
out," Davis says. "The Tibet Road was the trade route from Tibet to China from
ancient times. This is a part of history. And I wanted to see Mt. Everest."
The magnificence of the mountains and the starkness of the land fascinated
Davis. "Everything is so huge there," he says. "The air is so clear and crisp;
there's no haze like in mountains here."
He stayed in teahouses or lodges, generally built of bricks that were carved
out of rocks and roofed with tin. He ate rice and lentils and higher up found
that the natives cooked potatoes the same way we do to make French fries.
The 1,000-room, stone Potala Palace in Lhasa, Tibet, contrasted with the
Tibetan nomads who still live in tents and use yaks as beasts of burden. In
some areas, Davis and his companions had to push their motorcycles up hills and
across narrow footbridges. The roads are "dirt and mud holes." Davis also had
food poisoning -- twice.
With his experience as a pharmacist and adventure traveler, Davis came back
safe and sound, already planning his next trip. But experts say when you travel
to an area with altitudes higher than those to which you're accustomed, you
must take time to acclimatize yourself. You also should know the symptoms of
acute mountain sickness and related altitude illnesses.
"When you go from sea level to the Colorado Rockies, acute mountain sickness is
common," says Levine, who runs the IEEM as a joint project of Presbyterian and
UT Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas. "You experience headache,
lightheadedness, nausea, and difficulty sleeping."
This occurs, he says, because your body isn't getting its normal amount of
oxygen. This can be prevented by not exerting yourself too strenuously when you
first arrive at a higher altitude, and by limiting how quickly you ascend.
"It's a matter of how fast do you go and how high you sleep," Levine says.
He recommends that if you are at 10,000 feet or above, you only increase the
altitude by 1,000 feet per day. Also, you should always descend a little after
each climb so you are sleeping at an altitude less than the one to which you
climbed that day.
Mild cases of mountain sickness can be treated with ibuprofen. Other drugs,
such as dexamethasone, also can prevent or treat this illness. Dexamethasone is
a steroid that decreases brain and other swelling. However, experts warn that
the only cure is to acclimatize your body or descend to a lower altitude.
If acute mountain sickness progresses, it can lead to ataxia, or loss of
coordination, when a person can't walk a straight line. Once this happens, a
person should immediately descend before they are unable to walk unassisted.
The severest types of altitude illness are High Altitude Pulmonary Edema (HAPE)
and High Altitude Cerebral Edema (HACE). In HAPE, fluid builds up in the lungs
so that oxygen is not exchanged. Victims are short of breath even at rest, and
have chest tightness, coughing accompanied by discharge of fluid, a gurgling
sound in the lungs, and weakness. There also will be some disorientation
because the brain isn't receiving enough oxygen.
Those suffering from HACE, in which the brain swells because of fluid leakage,
will have a severe headache, ataxia, disorientation, memory loss, and can fall
into a coma. If a person starts suffering any of the signs of HAPE or HACE,
they must descend 2,000 to 4,000 feet immediately and seek medical treatment.
Many expeditions into areas such as the Himalayas now carry a 14-pound,
artificial hyperbaric chamber, called a Gamow Bag. It can temporarily simulate
an atmosphere up to 5,000 feet lower than the patient's location. A person
placed inside the bag can then be brought to a lower altitude.
As Davis did when he went to the Himalayan clinic, Levine says a headache is a
clear sign that you need to take action.
"Don't ascend with a headache," he says. "People get into trouble because they
don't want to be left behind, so they climb higher. That's when fatalities
occur."
|
|
back
|
|
|
