Altitude Sickness( Tips)

Simply, altitude sickness is the negative health affect due to low amount of oxygen at high altitude. Headache, diarrhea, nausea, vomiting, tiredness, fever and trouble in sleeping are the common symptoms of Altitude sickness. Acute mountain sickness may occur if we expose our body in high elevation for a long time.  

Symptoms

You might have:

• Headache
• Dizziness
• Nausea
• Vomiting
• Fatigue and loss of energy
• Shortness of breath
• Problems with sleep
• Loss of appetite

Altitude sickness typically occurs only above 2500m. However, some people get it at lower elevation. But all kinds of vomiting, diarrhea, dizziness, vomiting and tiredness may not be because of altitude sickness. There may be other reasons like unsafe drinking water, unhygienic foods, smoking and drinking, having drugs and so on. But, when people get these symptoms, they are troubled that they have altitude sickness.

Prevention

Climb up nor more than 300 m a day

Ascending slowly is the best way of preventing altitude sickness. If we climb up rapidly more than 300 m in a day, then there is possibility of getting altitude sickness. Let your body adopt the higher elevation gradually.

Pre –Acclimatization

Check if your body tolerates high altitude before ascending higher elevation. For this, trekking or climbing trips normally separate special acclimatization day in the higher elevation in order to prevent altitude sickness. Or people do shorter hiking or trekking and acclimatize their body with low level of oxygen before venturing to challenging and adventurous trip in the mountain.

Hydration

Hydrate sufficiently in the mountain but do not over hydrate because over hydration may cause Hyponatremia Intake at least 3 liters of water every day. If you sweat a lot, you can take more than that too. We can replace water with other fluids like various soups and items of tea.

Avoid smoking and Alcohol

We see some people are smoking terribly in higher elevation and drinking too. These two activities are very harmful in higher elevation. Those who consume alcohol and smoke are likely to get altitude sickness in the mountain.

Better not to eat local meat

Having local meat sometimes may not be accepted by your body and it disturbs digestion. Consequently, we have diarrhea which may result other health hazards like headache and fever.

Treatment

• Bring Diamox  and use125 mg twice daily
•  use  tea made from the coca plant
• The most reliable medication to Altitude sickness is to descend
• If the problem still persists after descent, then required to be rescued immediately

The most important thing to fight altitude sickness is your determination and confidence. If you have strong determination and confidence, you do not need any rescue, prevention and medication.