Altitude sickness

I can tell you, altitude sickness is not funny!

When I arrived at South Pole, a friend of mine from Boulder, who will overwinter this year, picked me up at the plane and showed me the way inside the main building. After a short briefing for all new arrivals, she showed me around and took me to lunch, since we arrived conveniently around lunchtime. After that I wanted to take a little nap, because I had only about 4 hours of sleep in McMurdo the night before. So I went to my room, laid down and felt crappy right away. My pulse was pretty high, I felt light-headed and dizzy, I got a headache, and the combination of all made me feel like I was close to vomiting. Of course, we were told about altitude sickness, but I never expected it to appear so soon after my arrival!

Here is what a little information sheet in my room has to say about all the altitude sickness:
“When people travel from McMurdo Station, on the Antarctic coast, to the South Pole which is the geographic center of Antarctica, they go from sea level to an altitude of 9300 feet in about three hours. We don’t have the option of staging the ascent from McMurdo to the Pole. Thus many people experience altitude sickness during their first several days here. The pressure of oxygen in the atmosphere is lower here due to the elevation, cold and barometric pressure, resulting in a pressure altitude of well over 10000 feet!
Symptoms:
• Headache, very common
• Shortness of breath, even with light exertion, very common
• ‘Just not feeling well’
• Difficulty sleeping
• Dizziness
• Nausea/decreased appetite
• Increased pulse and respiratory rate”

I got it all. I could not be upright without feeling dizzy and almost vomiting. And when I was lying in bed, I could not sleep because my heart was racing and my breath was so short. Honestly, if somebody would have offered me a plane flight back to McMurdo on that afternoon, I would have happily taken it! The treatment for altitude sickness is LOTS of fluids (3-4 liters of water minimum per day), lots of rest, no alcohol, Ibuprofen, and some Diamox tablets that were given to us at McMurdo.

So with that in mind, I drank as much as I could without throwing up, tried to sleep, and took the Diamox tablets and hoped for the best. And it really got better. On Sunday I still felt a bit weak, but I could be upright, and I actually dared to go outside. And today, Monday, I was almost back to normal. So I hope, knock on wood, the worst part of the altitude sickness is already over.