feeling the effects of altitude
Tuesday, May 8th, 2007We’ve been walking towards Manang for a week, and yesterday we finally reached it. We’re at altitude now, above 3500 meters, or 11,000 feet and now AMS, or acute mountain sickness, is something that we have to take pains to prevent. One of the measures the Himalaya Rescue Association recommends is spending an extra day in Manang to allow your body to acclimate, and that’s exactly what we did today.
The HRA also recommends doing “acclimatization walks,” or walks where you ascend higher than you will sleep that evening. We hiked longer and farther today, on our day of rest, than we have on our travel days. We climbed almost 1100 meters (3300 feet) towards an ice lake, which we never managed to find, and then descended back to Manang for the evening. While the climb was tough and it was obvious in our labored breathing that the air held less oxygen, we didn’t have any symptoms of AMS. We will continue to ascend slowly, but things are looking good for crossing the pass in three days time.
One of the more awkward symptoms of AMS is gastrointestional problems, of which Anna and I have already had more than our share. We took a course of meds at the beginning of our trip to clear out some lingering nasty from Delhi, but two days ago, Anna started having issues again. We visited the doctor when we arrived in Manang, a volunteer from Liverpool, England, and her diagnosis was that because Anna has had so many runs of antibiotics recently, the natural fauna, the good bacteria, have also been killed off and her stomach has forgotten how to behave. She prescribed loperamide, or Immodium, as a trainer to get Anna’s cranky stomach back in line. So far it hasn’t done much, but Anna has no other symptoms to indicate a bacterial, ameobal or parasitic infection. THe doc said that in the absence of any other symptoms, Anna will just have to tough it out and hope it goes away, a diagnosis Anna was thrilled with.
I’ve also had my share of G.I.n troubles, but of the more windy variety. We learned in our AMS lecture that, in addition to the serious and potentially fatal conditions of HAPE (high altitude pulmonary edema) and HACE (high altitude cerebral edema) there is also a less serious condition called HAFE, or high altitude flatauence explusion or something like that. It seems that my body responds to everything unusual with wind, and high altitude is apparently no exception.
Leaving the disgusting bits behind, Nepal continues to be a beautiful country. The mountain views have been obscured for the last few days by banks of clouds, but the early morning has been clear. It makes it worthwhile to get up at 6, something I’ve never been too keen on.
Enough is enough. Goodnight.
awrichner