That is Altitude Sickness

This summer I spent 11 days in Tibet with my parents and their friends. Besides the amazing landscape, the most unforgettable thing is the experience of Altitude Sickness. Altitude Sickness is known as Acute Mountain Sickness (AMS). It is a pathological effect for people staying in the high altitude (8000 ft.+) and exposed to low partial pressure of oxygen. In that situation, people may feel headache, fatigue, stomach illness, dizziness, sleep disturbance, etc. Slight illness would be okay, but strong illness may lead to death. During this trip, all seven of us have experienced different types of AMS.

In order to better adapt to the altitude in Tibet, we chose to go there by train not by plane. The altitude in my hometown’s altitude is 40 ft., while Lhasa, our destination, has the altitude of 11975 ft. If we had gotten there by plane, our bodies would not be able to endure this extremely high altitude change. It would took us 42 hours to get to Lhasa by train, but it was better to help us adapt the change in the altitude. The first day on the train, everyone was fine. When we arrived at Xining, the origin of Qinghai-Tibet Railway, we were told to change the train. Because the normal train cannot handle the future trip on the plateau, we needed to transfer to an oxygen supply train. On that train, every seat has an oxygen cutlet to emit oxygen. Even though we had those oxygen-supplying facilities, one of our team members got AMS only 3 hours after the train drove into the plateau. She got a bad headache, vomited and could not eat anything. One passenger fainted after a quick stand-up. My parents and I were fine until we got to Lhasa.

 

The oxygen cutlet on the train

We arrived at Lhasa at 4p.m., our guide picked us and drove us to the hotel. She told us, “you may get AMS after you get here. In the first 24 hours, you cannot take a shower or drink alcohol, which will exacerbate your AMS.” When we arrive at our hotel, I got the first symptom of AMS—fatigue. I never thought that climbing to the second floor would be so hard for me. It was feeling like I was climbing 10 floors with 10 pounds of rock hanging on my legs. All our team members had this feeling. The one who got a headache on the train had a fever. We sent her to a clinic near our hotel. The doctor said she got AMS and gave her some medicine.

At night, everyone got a light headache and sleep disturbance, and this headache, sometimes light, sometimes strong, accompanied us for the whole trip. The headache did not bothered me, because I got something worse. My nose was bleeding everyday. Every time when it began to bleed it would last for half hour. Almost every morning I woke up with a nosebleed. Sleep disorder is interesting at high altitude. When people stay at the altitude between 9800 ft. to 16400 ft., their brains got excited due to the lack of oxygen, so they can’t sleep. However, when people reach the altitude of 16400 ft., their brains will become tired because of a lack of oxygen and want to sleep. In this situation, nevertheless, you can’t sleep. If you sleep in this situation, you may die due to severe hypoxia.

All in all, Tibet is not the place where you can go if you want. It is a place where you need preparation, especially the preparation for the AMS.