#Altitude sickness treatment how to
#Altitude sickness treatment professional

The changes you experience may not feel great, but they are normal acclimatization. (Note that if you exert yourself physically while acclimatizing and therefore perspire more, you will intensify the tendency to dehydration.)

Become dehydrated, as your urine output increases, and as you lose more fluids due to your increased breathing rate and the dry mountain air.

As a result, you may wake frequently and feel a lack of air. In periodic breathing (also called PB or Cheyne Stokes breathing), the breath alternates between deep and shallow breathing.

Experience a changed breathing pattern at night, called periodic breathing.

Notice a feeling of breathlessness when you exert yourself at high altitude.

Most of these changes happen in the first two days at higher altitudes, though for some people, it can take four days. Your body will be going through some significant changes when exposed to high altitude, and you will need to give it some time to sync up all the processes.

2įor an excellent breakdown of the many complex changes that happen in the first few days of normal acclimatization, see Inga Aksamit’s An Unofficial Acclimatization Guideline for JMT Hikers. (More on that later…)Īnother way is by reducing alkalinity through urine. One way it does this is by suppressing breathing! This becomes especially apparent at night.

#Altitude sickness treatment how to

The body now has to figure out how to restore its normal acid-base balance. To put the science as simply as possible:ĭue to breathing faster and deeper, your body takes in more oxygen but loses carbon dioxide. Your body will be going through a number of complex changes. In the first few days, you will breathe faster and deeper, to take in more oxygen, and your heart rate will increase. ©YoWangdu What is a normal reaction to high altitude? The Bernese Alps: A view from Murren, Switzerland. It physically changes, in some fascinating ways, to begin to adapt to the lack of sufficient oxygen. Right away, your body begins to work to make the best use of the reduced oxygen available. That means, because of the lower air pressure at higher elevations, there is less oxygen available in each breath you take. As you go higher - especially to locations over 8000 ft like Lhasa, Cuzco, Telluride, or the peak of Kilimanjaro - the air becomes “thinner.”

For your safety, consult with your doctor before undertaking any course of action related to altitude sickness medication or treatment! What is altitude sickness?Īltitude sickness is your body’s negative reaction to traveling too quickly to high altitudes.

#Altitude sickness treatment professional

It is important to note that we are not medical experts and all the information provided here is only for educational purposes and not to be taken as professional advice. So you won’t need to repeat our mistakes, no matter where you are traveling. We’ll share with you the lessons we’ve learned along the way. Through personal experience and research, we’ve learned how to feel MUCH better at high altitude on trips to Tibet. In this chapter we’ll give you the fundamentals of altitude sickness. Chapter 9: Gold Standard Resources for Altitude Sickness Prevention Chapter 1: Altitude Sickness Basics