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Acute Mountain Sickness

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High Altitude Medicine

Abstract

A 45 years old non smoking healthy hiker, from an expedition group in the Himalayas, was scaling a 7000 meter (m) high mountain in Nepal. The team took 3 days to reach 4500 m by vehicle and spent there three nights. On routine check, the hiker did not show any altitude related signs and symptoms. Next day climb was of 500 m ascent over 12 kilometer (km) distance and weather remained quite snowy the whole day. On that day, his fluid intake and urine output got reduced. Hiker felt mild tiredness and had fragmented sleep. The next day, they reached next camp site at 5600 m which they achieved following a hike of 4.5 kilometer with further reduced intake and output. Weather remained harsh during both the days. On arrival at 5600 m, he complained of headache and incoordination, he had normal diet and took paracetamol and slept. Teammate complained of rapid and periodic breathing. At 2 o’clock in early morning, his pulse rate 130/min, regular, respiratory rate of 30/min, saturations (SpO2) was 60%, his Lake Louise acute mountain sickness self-assessment questionnaire score (LLS) was 8. Then he was attended by the medical team at the well-equipped base clinic.

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Bhattacharyya, P., Pradhan, D., Deb, P. (2023). Acute Mountain Sickness. In: Hidalgo, J., Da Re, S., D'Almeida, A.G. (eds) High Altitude Medicine. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-35092-4_9

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-35092-4_9

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-031-35091-7

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