Badly acute of the mountains

The badly acute of the mountains (MAM) is a syndrome of suffering, related to a too fast rise in high-altitude, on the absence of acclimatization and a personal sensitivity, more or less important. Its symptoms are Céphalée S, nausea S and Vomissement S, Insomnie, general Fatigue, Lassitude, Vertige S, disorders of balance, Dyspnée and Inappétence.

It is thus about a frequent disease concerning people in good health but exposed to an extreme environment of high-altitude. Its incidence is variable, but increases very quickly with altitude; it would be of 15% to 2000 meters of altitude and 60% to 4000 meters.

This evil appears after a time of a few hours in altitude; it regresses with the acclimatization and disappears immediately with the descent. The people borrowing a cable car to remain only one or two hours in high-altitude, time to admire the point of view - for example the Cable car of the Needle of the South (3840 meters) in the Massive of Mont Blanc - will not be touched.

Causes

The atmospheric pressure and thus with it, the partial pressure oxygenates some, decrease with altitude according to a practically exponential relation. By this fact the quantity of oxygen available at the cellular level decreases what immediately generates a certain number of compensation mechanisms (Hyperventilation, modification of the affinity of hemoglobin for oxygen, Polyglobulie, etc).

When these compensation mechanisms are insufficient or time does not have to settle, the victim can develop badly acute whole of symptoms called a “of the mountains”. In the most serious cases, the person can make a pulmonary edema , a cerebral edema what can lead finally to dead in the absence of suitable treatment (descent, oxygen, pharmacology).

Prevention and care

The prevention passes initially by the acclimatization.

For stays prolonged above 3500 meters, it is necessary to progress in altitude of 500 meters to 800 meters maximum per day according to the sensitivity. At a high altitude (between 4000 meters and 5000 meters), the pulmonary edema of high-altitude (OPHA) can occur brutally constantly during the first 48 hours.

Certain drugs like the calcic inhibiters improve the state of the patient and in the event of supervening of the evil, they give him a small margin of time to enable him to go down again and lose quickly altitude, which is really the only method of effective care.

At a very high altitude, beyond 5000 meters, the evil can become complicated of a cerebral edema of high-altitude which is characterized by modifications of mood and behavior, and/or by unbearable headaches. Sight trouble and vomiting out of jets, precede the Coma which is fatal, if the patient is not immediately gone down again at an altitude lower, or put immediately in a box making it possible to increase the pressure, called Caisson hyperbare.

In the Andes (Peru, Bolivia), the virtues of the sheet of Coke, consumed in the form of the (subdued of Coke) or chewed, make it possible to alleviate the symptoms.

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