Altitude Sickness

[JJ Mathes]

I was at my local nutrition store today picking up my supplements. Before I left I asked if any one was familiar with altitude sickness and what would they suggest as a prevention if any. Liquid oxygen drops was suggested, start taking now and during my hike in August. I held off on buying any until I can check them out.

Has anyone had any experience with this, good or bad or is it nonsense?

[John S.]

Nonsense. It's probably H2O (liquid that has oxygen in it).

[Ashley Brown]

The morning of the summit attempt one party member was weakened, with nausea, a headache, malaise, difficulty talking or performing simple tasks, etc.. classic altitude sickness. I was about to take this individual down when I noticed irregular breathing patterns. We focused on deep, regular breathing, which seemed to increase the saturated oxygen in the blood, because all symptoms were significantly reduced, and the individual summited and descended with the group.

With no offence intended, but this is not a smart idea. If you have symptoms of AMS you must not ascend. That one individual may have gotten away with it, but others will run into serious trouble. People have died at 10000 feet from AMS.

I've been to around 6000m/18000 feet without symptoms (if you don't count lack of breath and difficulty sleeping!). But did it *really* slowly. I followed the 1000ft/300m per day rule, plus one day of acclimatisation (same altitude sleep) every three days. Drank buckets of water, though not sure whether that helped (many think it does).

The Nepalese are big believers in garlic helping acclimatisation… so just crunch away on a few cloves on your way up the trail ;-)

[Walter Carrington]

P.P. wrote: "Our family on both sides lived many generations in the Rocky Mountains and my grandparents were hikers and climbers. My siblings and I were born and raised in Washington state but we just seem to do better at higher elevations than others of similar physical condtioning and diet. We're thinking genetics."

It may be genetics, but more likely luck of the draw than from 'many generations in the Rocky Mountains' unless 'many generations' is a 100 generations or so. Sherpas and (I think) Tibetans are the only people that have serious genetic adaptation to lower oxygen levels. If I'm remembering correctly people indigenous to the Andes have some physical adaptation — somewhat larger lung volume. In Peru, even an Andean native will get sick when he goes home to high elevation if he's lived in Lima (sea level) for too long.

The umbles can also be hypothermia. At altitude, someone who is mentally confused, disoriented, can't do simple mental tasks must descend immediately. HACE us deadly.

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