00:00
So let’s start out with acute
mountain sickness, what is this?
Some of the symptoms that are involved
with acute mountain sickness include
headache, dizziness,
fatigue, nausea, insomnia
and all these things usually occur pretty
quickly within the first 12 hours.
00:17
But they should resolve themselves
within about 24 to 48 hours.
00:25
The pathophysiology of
acute mountain sickness
is not understood to
a full degree yet,
but I think it’s probably
related to hypoxia
and how that hypoxia is
related to alkalosis.
00:40
So remember that in order or
when you respond to hypoxia,
you increase ventilation.
00:46
As you increase ventilation,
you blow off CO2.
00:49
As you blow off CO2, you start to cause
yourself a respiratory alkalosis.
00:57
Also, you’d have to keep in
mind is acute mountain sickness
can sometimes progress
to mild cerebral edema.
01:06
Therefore, it could be related
to high altitude cerebral edema,
which could be life-threatening.
01:12
What can you do about
acute mountain sickness?
Well, there’s some treatment
and prevention possibilities,
prevention is most likely by gradually
ascending to that mountain environment.
01:24
This may involve things like going
up and setting up a base camp,
returning back to another camp,
then setting up a camp higher than
that and moving back down again,
gradually ascending to
these new high altitudes.
01:38
If that’s not possible, there are some
pharmacology agents that might be able to help.
01:43
Carbonic anhydrase inhibitors
sometimes will work
because what that does is it helps
you respond to that alkalosis.
01:50
But the biggest thing is is if you’re having
symptoms and you can’t get rid of them,
it is descending down to a
normobaric environment.