Trekking up a mountain to experience the beauty of nature, hunt elusive prey, or escape certain doom becomes a problematic experience the longer you’re climbing the mountain.
For some folks, months of preparation and training are required to undertake such a task, and when they’re up there on the mountain, they can’t believe they’re doing it. Everything seems well until they feel a headache coming on, soon to be followed by nausea.
They trained for months, and they’re already exhausted. How about that?
They feel confused, and they soon start to feel sick, almost like being drunk. What should they do?
They are experiencing acute mountain sickness or AMS, a condition common in people traveling to altitudes above 8,000, with a general incidence rate of about 25% of all travelers. However, for those travelling directly to the Mountain Everest area or visiting the Himalayas, the incidence is somewhere around 50 to 85%.
Now, you’re probably not planning to visit the Himalayas any time soon, but if you want to try your luck at high-altitude hunting to bag a goat and even elk or deer, you should learn a thing or two about AMS. Such a hunting trip can often find you camped at 8,000-10,000 feet or higher, and you need to prepare your travel schedule to acclimatize for a few days.
Understanding the severity of AMS
AMS was commonly called altitude illness by mountain men, and it was the primary term to describe what was happening to city folks when they wandered on the mountain and got sick. AMS occurs when a person’s body doesn’t have enough time to adapt to the lower pressure and oxygen found at a higher altitude.
This “altitude sickness” is, in fact, a group of general symptoms that begin to manifest once a person is climbing or walking to a higher and higher elevation too quickly. The more you advance without realizing what’s happening to you, the worse you will get.
The problem is that mild symptoms are often confused with the onset of a viral illness, and people wrongly assume they caught a bug or something because they feel tired and have a headache. However, it’s the altitude that’s causing your body to react the way it does.
The symptoms of AMS that will sometimes include loss of appetite, dizziness, and sleep problems will most often start within 12 to 24 hours of arriving at your camping place at a high altitude, and they tend to last just a couple of days as the person gets used to the higher elevation.
Most people experiencing mild symptoms such as headaches and fatigue will recover just fine if they stop their trip, slow down, or descent. The descent is the keyword here, and it’s the main course of action if they aren’t getting any better.
Once symptoms intensify to an intermediate state, and the person starts to feel a general weakness and shortness of breath, chances are they won’t feel better even if they took over-the-counter medicine. Their situation can deteriorate further over time. The person will soon start to have difficulty walking, loss of coordination, and a severe headache. They will feel a tightness or congestion in the chest, and vomiting will occur.
Severe altitude sickness comes with an inability to walk, shortness of breath even at rest, confusion, and fluid build-up in the lungs and/or brain (brain and lung edema). Coughing may also be present, and the person will have pale or bluish skin. The situation can worsen to a coma and become deadly. It becomes critical to begin descent immediately and seek medical help.
What you should do to acclimate your body to high altitude
To prevent altitude sickness and acclimate your body to a high altitude without significant issues, here are a few things you can do.
- Being well hydrated and fed is very important, and you should drink 1 gallon of water per day. Also, you should eat even if you don’t feel hungry. Always stay hydrated and avoid alcohol consumption.
- Move at a slow place since you need to give your body time to get used to the thin air. Even if you’re part of a group, everyone should pace themselves since everyone adapts at a different rate.
- Do acclimatization hikes. Climb to a higher altitude during the day and set camp at a lower elevation at night. This is something professional climbers do, and they call it “climb high, sleep low.” It’s a type of altitude training, and it’s known to help them adapt easier to high altitude.
- Always look for common symptoms such as headache, fatigue, lightheadedness, loss of appetite, sleeplessness, and nausea. These are deciding factors to convince a climber to head down.
- Some experienced climbers look for changes in their partners’ behavior, such as walking pace, balance, how they speak, food and water intake, and energy level. They can figure out quickly if someone suffers from AMS, and you need to learn how to spot these signs if you plan to take part in a hiking adventure at a high altitude.
- There’s no point in pushing you forward once you notice you might suffer from AMS as the rate of deterioration could speed up, and beginning to descent may be the only difference between life and death.
- If you get stuck at a high altitude because of weather or an injury, rescue workers will bring oxygen to treat altitude mountain sickness, but you shouldn’t count on it. Begin the descent and slow your pace to avoid injuries and give your body time to adapt to the change in oxygen pressure.
If you live near sea level, understand that your body might be at risk when traveling to a higher altitude destination since your body isn’t used to dealing with a lower pressure of oxygen. You may be at risk even if you are traveling by car or when you are flying.
Concluding
Planning a slow ascend is perhaps the best advice you can get to avoid dealing with altitude sickness, and it’s one of the main things you can control. Traveling to a high-altitude location is about the altitude and how fast you get there.
If you’re not careful, mild symptoms can lead to severe altitude sickness, and your situation can worse to a come and become deadly. Make sure you plan your trip carefully, one step at a time.
