Got hypoxia really bad!

SkyHog

SkyHog

Touchdown! Greaser!
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Everything Offends Me
Here's a story of a first time, but I'll preface with another first ever: "The FAA is right about something medical in nature."

So today, I took the cog railway up to the top of Pike's Peak (14,110ft MSL). Once we got above the timberline, I started to get a little dizzy, but it didn't seem that bad. That was at 11,500ft or so.

As we got further and further, I started feeling a bit more, and more dizzy. Once we reached the top, I had a hard time standing up, because my head was swimming so much. I went for a bit of a walk around the peak, grabbed some food and felt a bit better. I got back to the train, and waited with my wife and kid until it was time to go back down.

We descended without issue, and got to the bottom, and left.

Or so, that's what I thought happened. Apparently, here's what really happened:

We got to the top of the run, and I started speaking incoherently. My wife was a bit scared and asked me numerous times if I was ok. She wouldn't let me hold my son, and when she could understand what I was saying, it was generally some sort of cheesy joke that made no sense whatsoever.

I got off the train and stumbled (like a mad-man, as it was described) over to the railing where I snapped some pictures of terrain.

Then, I got back on the train, food all over my face like I was missing my mouth, where my wife remembered the trick I told her about years ago - she asked me to solve some basic math problems. Apparently, I took about 2 minutes to tell her 9x12 was 72, and when a few people corrected me and told me I was suffering from hypoxia, I simply told them that it was, in fact, right, and they were probably all suffering from hypoxia.

I remember some of this, in a very hazy way (sort of like the morning after a long binge drinking teenage night, when someone tells you that you made out with the fat chick with all the piercings). Some of the events I absolutely do not remember at all (for example, taking some pictures from the top, which I have the photo evidence of). I remember the math stuff a bit, but I don't recall it taking me that long to get the wrong answer (for some reason, in my head, I remember working it out manually even to double check the answer, and it was still wrong).

Here's my assumption: Living in North Carolina for the last few years has turned me into an altitude wuss. When I lived in NM, at 6,000ft elevation, jumping in a plane and flying up to 14 or 15 thousand feet was a non-event, and I handled it very well. I've been in Colorado for about 3 months now, but apparently haven't fully acclimated to the higher elevations, so today was like going from sea level to 14,000+ ft, and I couldn't handle it.

Kinda scary. I didn't realize it was like that at all. Next time, I'm gonna buy one of those cans of air they sell.
 
Classic hypoxia story, thanks for posting, especially the not remembering behavior parts. Good thing it wasn't in an aircraft or car....

SkyHog said:
Here's a story of a first time, but I'll preface with another first ever: "The FAA is right about something medical in nature."

So today, I took the cog railway up to the top of Pike's Peak (14,110ft MSL). Once we got above the timberline, I started to get a little dizzy, but it didn't seem that bad. That was at 11,500ft or so.

As we got further and further, I started feeling a bit more, and more dizzy. Once we reached the top, I had a hard time standing up, because my head was swimming so much. I went for a bit of a walk around the peak, grabbed some food and felt a bit better. I got back to the train, and waited with my wife and kid until it was time to go back down.

We descended without issue, and got to the bottom, and left.

Or so, that's what I thought happened. Apparently, here's what really happened:

We got to the top of the run, and I started speaking incoherently. My wife was a bit scared and asked me numerous times if I was ok. She wouldn't let me hold my son, and when she could understand what I was saying, it was generally some sort of cheesy joke that made no sense whatsoever.

I got off the train and stumbled (like a mad-man, as it was described) over to the railing where I snapped some pictures of terrain.

Then, I got back on the train, food all over my face like I was missing my mouth, where my wife remembered the trick I told her about years ago - she asked me to solve some basic math problems. Apparently, I took about 2 minutes to tell her 9x12 was 72, and when a few people corrected me and told me I was suffering from hypoxia, I simply told them that it was, in fact, right, and they were probably all suffering from hypoxia.

I remember some of this, in a very hazy way (sort of like the morning after a long binge drinking teenage night, when someone tells you that you made out with the fat chick with all the piercings). Some of the events I absolutely do not remember at all (for example, taking some pictures from the top, which I have the photo evidence of). I remember the math stuff a bit, but I don't recall it taking me that long to get the wrong answer (for some reason, in my head, I remember working it out manually even to double check the answer, and it was still wrong).

Here's my assumption: Living in North Carolina for the last few years has turned me into an altitude wuss. When I lived in NM, at 6,000ft elevation, jumping in a plane and flying up to 14 or 15 thousand feet was a non-event, and I handled it very well. I've been in Colorado for about 3 months now, but apparently haven't fully acclimated to the higher elevations, so today was like going from sea level to 14,000+ ft, and I couldn't handle it.

Kinda scary. I didn't realize it was like that at all. Next time, I'm gonna buy one of those cans of air they sell.
Click to expand...
 
May take you a year to get used to being up here in the clouds.
 
SkyHog said:
Here's my assumption: Living in North Carolina for the last few years has turned me into an altitude wuss. When I lived in NM, at 6,000ft elevation, jumping in a plane and flying up to 14 or 15 thousand feet was a non-event, and I handled it very well.
Click to expand...

That's what I was thinking when I read the beginning. See, New Mexico isn't all bad.
Jon
 
It would be interesting to see what a Pulse Oximeter says... I've picked one up, but haven't flown over 10,500 recent to give it a test. 'Live in Phoenix at 1,500, but have never had problems flying hours at 12,500.

ps... 'looked up the Cog Railway... neat... +1 bucket list!
 
SkyHog said:
Here's my assumption: Living in North Carolina for the last few years has turned me into an altitude wuss.
Click to expand...
IIRC you also smoke. If so, that's more likely the main culprit, especially considering your relatively young age.

I smoked for 25 years, quit the day I wrote the check for my first plane. That's been almost 11 years ago. Best thing I've (finally) ever done.

Toughest thing I've ever done also so I have sympathy for smokers who can't quit.
 
OKC for the chamber ride, which I think costs $10.00 now...
...."But I feel fine!"
 
CT4ME said:
It would be interesting to see what a Pulse Oximeter says...
Click to expand...

It is interesting to see smoker's pulse ox level and try to correlate that to their behavior. As I understand it, the CO in the smoker's blood reads as O2 on the pulse ox.

As far as hypoxia/altitude sickness, Nick's experience sounds a little on the rough side. Maybe he has a cold or other minor respiratory ailment...

Anyway, thanks for sharing - I use O2 frequently when flying, monitor with the pulse ox. If I have pax then I try to stay as low as I can when flying in the hills.
 
Good write-up.

When I was flying back from Vegas a few years ago, I went up to 13k for an hour or so and hadn't bothered to put the O2 cannula on. I was looking at the GPS to figure out if I could make it to my destination non-stop based on the current groundspeed. I was having trouble doing the simple mental math. I put on the pulse oximeter and my O2 was down around 85%. Put the O2 on, and within a couple of minutes, the whole world got brighter and clearer.

Like Doc Bruce said "I felt fine", but I definitely wasn't.
 
I grew up in NM back in the old days and watched a new york smoker pass out on the Santa Fe Ski area chairlift. Scared the crap out of me as I grabbed him and prevented his fall from the chair. I thought I was Doing well at 12K feet with all my extra hemoglobin....On a night flight from Santa Fe back to Albuquerque the front seater suggested I take a hit off the oxy bottle and tell him what I saw. I tried it and watched lights appear all over as the oxygen took effect. My drive up to Pikes Peak didn't bother me a couple years later but I often think about how even those of us in good physical shape who grew up in lower pressure still had some loss of reality at altitudes over 10K. As we age and become more (or less) active things change....good to know what ones condition and capabilities are now. Took a ride up the tram on a trip home a year or two back and couldn't breath as well on the trail to the ski area as I used to.

Frank
 
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I spent an hour at 12,500 (14,600 DA) this afternoon coming home from New Braunfels, noticed no problems for the first half hour but the second half hour was vaguely aware of needing some deep breaths. Had no problems doing the math or keeping up with the flight, but I'm also in excellent shape and don't smoke. I hope I can keep it that way for a while...

I intend to install an O2 system in the 9A I'm currently building since I do tend to cruise high quite a bit, I'm sure I'll spend a lot of time in the mid-teens.
 
SkyHog said:
Here's a story of a first time, but I'll preface with another first ever: "The FAA is right about something medical in nature."

So today, I took the cog railway up to the top of Pike's Peak (14,110ft MSL). Once we got above the timberline, I started to get a little dizzy, but it didn't seem that bad. That was at 11,500ft or so.

As we got further and further, I started feeling a bit more, and more dizzy. Once we reached the top, I had a hard time standing up, because my head was swimming so much. I went for a bit of a walk around the peak, grabbed some food and felt a bit better. I got back to the train, and waited with my wife and kid until it was time to go back down.

We descended without issue, and got to the bottom, and left.

Or so, that's what I thought happened. Apparently, here's what really happened:

We got to the top of the run, and I started speaking incoherently. My wife was a bit scared and asked me numerous times if I was ok. She wouldn't let me hold my son, and when she could understand what I was saying, it was generally some sort of cheesy joke that made no sense whatsoever.

I got off the train and stumbled (like a mad-man, as it was described) over to the railing where I snapped some pictures of terrain.

Then, I got back on the train, food all over my face like I was missing my mouth, where my wife remembered the trick I told her about years ago - she asked me to solve some basic math problems. Apparently, I took about 2 minutes to tell her 9x12 was 72, and when a few people corrected me and told me I was suffering from hypoxia, I simply told them that it was, in fact, right, and they were probably all suffering from hypoxia.

I remember some of this, in a very hazy way (sort of like the morning after a long binge drinking teenage night, when someone tells you that you made out with the fat chick with all the piercings). Some of the events I absolutely do not remember at all (for example, taking some pictures from the top, which I have the photo evidence of). I remember the math stuff a bit, but I don't recall it taking me that long to get the wrong answer (for some reason, in my head, I remember working it out manually even to double check the answer, and it was still wrong).

Here's my assumption: Living in North Carolina for the last few years has turned me into an altitude wuss. When I lived in NM, at 6,000ft elevation, jumping in a plane and flying up to 14 or 15 thousand feet was a non-event, and I handled it very well. I've been in Colorado for about 3 months now, but apparently haven't fully acclimated to the higher elevations, so today was like going from sea level to 14,000+ ft, and I couldn't handle it.

Kinda scary. I didn't realize it was like that at all. Next time, I'm gonna buy one of those cans of air they sell.
Click to expand...
Any chance you were rather dehydrated? Your symptoms sound pretty severe for 11,000 MSL. I've spent most of my life at or below 1000 MSL and while the altitude saps my energy and strength a bit (skiing hard gets me out of breath), I have no cognitive issues at that altitude. At 13-14 I do feel the mental processes slowing down and if I spend more than a couple hours above 10,000 I might develop a headache but AFaIK I've never started babbling incoherently, even at 14. You might want to see a doctor about this.
 
gismo said:
Any chance you were rather dehydrated? Your symptoms sound pretty severe for 11,000 MSL. I've spent most of my life at or below 1000 MSL and while the altitude saps my energy and strength a bit (skiing hard gets me out of breath), I have no cognitive issues at that altitude. At 13-14 I do feel the mental processes slowing down and if I spend more than a couple hours above 10,000 I might develop a headache but AFaIK I've never started babbling incoherently, even at 14. You might want to see a doctor about this.
Click to expand...
I was north of 14k...contributing factors might have been mild dehydration and I had worked out very intensely that morning...
 
timwinters said:
IIRC you also smoke. If so, that's more likely the main culprit, especially considering your relatively young age.

I smoked for 25 years, quit the day I wrote the check for my first plane. That's been almost 11 years ago. Best thing I've (finally) ever done.

Toughest thing I've ever done also so I have sympathy for smokers who can't quit.
Click to expand...

How long is it supposed to take before you start noticing a difference?
I quit after some 16 years of mostly pack and a half or so a day 7 months ago.
Running/swimming/etc definitely don't run out of air as I used to, but can't say that the whole O2 at altitude deal improved. On the contrary, I feel a bit out of breath at altitudes I used to be fine at (9-10k) for the first 10-20 minutes.
I guess 93% isn't good 'nuf anymore.
 
Have been hypoxic a number of times, all of which but one were in the chamber/ROBD. For the one unplanned time, I was flying a single seat jet, and it wasn't like my previous experiences (or experiences since then). In the ROBD (Reduced Oxygen Breathing Device = a mask with controlled oxygen concentration that you strap to your helmet while sitting in a sim while doing normal cockpit tasks) my symptoms took a long time to materialize, and I was able to pretty normally fly until they actually stopped the event because my O2 concentration was getting too low to be safe. In my actual hypoxic event, it happened really quickly, and I very rapidly started having trouble with basic hand eye coordination (was flying loose formation at the time), and was struggling with my vision. More importantly, it took pressure from my flight lead once I told him what was going on to actually start the boldface EP. Even after I did basically a split-S to get down to a safe altitude, I never activated emergency oxygen or completed the rest of the EP. This was the result of a malfunctioning ECS, which completely dumped cockpit pressure when I was at 35k ft. Very unnerving, mainly from the perspective of how much it clouded my decision making, and prevented me from doing the most basic lifesaving task of pulling the ring to activate my emergency O2. Not really related to your story OP, but I think of value to the flying side of hypoxia.
 
SkyHog said:
I was north of 14k...contributing factors might have been mild dehydration and I had worked out very intensely that morning...
Click to expand...
Nick, "big" folks have yet another phenomenon: breathing at normal volumes results in premature small airway closure in the lower part of the lung, that leads to mismatching of the ventilation to "where the perfusion" is, in the lungs. So, a good bit of blood doesn't get oxygenated and the blue blood mixes with the oxygenated blood rendering you undersaturated.

Another advantage of getting slender.....
 
bbchien said:
Nick, "big" folks have yet another phenomenon: breathing at normal volumes results in premature small airway closure in the lower part of the lung, that leads to mismatching of the ventilation to "where the perfusion" is, in the lungs. So, a good bit of blood doesn't get oxygenated and the blue blood mixes with the oxygenated blood rendering you undersaturated.

Another advantage of getting slender.....
Click to expand...

Good news: I've lost 3 inches and about 14 pounds thanks to PJ Gustafson's help. And I'm only 1/3 of the way through the first stages of life change, so I hope to see much, much more :)

So:

{X} Quit Smoking
{X} Lose Weight
{X} Change diet to resolve kidney stones
{ } Get medical back
{ } Be happy

Almost there.
 
Having a pulse-oximeter up here is kinda neat. I used mine when we flew from Denver to Wolf Creek in March. We went over the pass at 13.5k. I stayed above 90% saturation. I would like to try some O2 on a night flight and see what happens.
 
Nick, you also now know how you react, and it's not one of the "good" ways, if there are any. Can't do the math, argue that it's right. Not a good combo if you were by yourself in a cockpit.

Plan on taking some O2 along if you're going West. Be thankful you didn't pile the family in the family vehicle and drive it.

Pikes really is a poor man's altitude chamber. We warn folks from sea-level who visit and they still want to go.

So we dump water in them until they say they are going to have to pee like racehorses at the top and then they enjoy the view, pass out on the way down in the vehicle, and have a huge headache all evening for which we prescribe more water. ;)
 
timwinters said:
Toughest thing I've ever done also so I have sympathy for smokers who can't quit.
Click to expand...

I do. Nicoteine is easily the most addictive drug known to man. There are more reformed heroin addicts than reformed smokers. Different people respond differently to addictive substances. Just because one has the ability to quit doesn't mean the next does.

And yes, smoking decreases the efficiency of the lungs. Always, with every cigarette. The single most effective thing you can do to improve your health is stop smoking.

Now I get to brag. About 20 years ago I backpacked though a mountain pass at 14K feet. That is, walk though the snow lugging 50 pounds of stuff. I had to stop, not to rest, but to boil some of the snow melt for water. Took along time to boil too. I was in good shape back then. Not so much now.

Kudos on Nick for quitting smoking, I know how idfficult it can be.
 
steingar said:
I do. Nicoteine is easily the most addictive drug known to man. There are more reformed heroin addicts than reformed smokers. Different people respond differently to addictive substances. Just because one has the ability to quit doesn't mean the next does.

And yes, smoking decreases the efficiency of the lungs. Always, with every cigarette. The single most effective thing you can do to improve your health is stop smoking.

Now I get to brag. About 20 years ago I backpacked though a mountain pass at 14K feet. That is, walk though the snow lugging 50 pounds of stuff. I had to stop, not to rest, but to boil some of the snow melt for water. Took along time to boil too. I was in good shape back then. Not so much now.

Kudos on Nick for quitting smoking, I know how idfficult it can be.
Click to expand...
Was your fire less than 212F?

Trivia question:
What's the boiling point of water at .5 atmosphere?
 
Thanks for sharing your story

I live at 400agl and no issues @ 12,5 anyway. 92% at 12,500 after an hour. Haven't been higher than that.
 
CT4ME said:
Live in Phoenix at 1,500, but have never had problems flying hours at 12,500.
Click to expand...


I always landed with a headache after long cross country's at 12,500.

Only had hypoxia once when I climbed above 12,500 for a brief period of time.

I was wearing a digital watch and got confused a little trying to figure out if it had been 30 min. yet.

After my carbon monoxide poisoning, I dug out my oxygen bottle from the garage and put it back in the Bonanza and never took off without it… no matter how high I was flying

It took me a couple of years before I felt “normal” Above 10,000 feet… even with the oxygen.

I'm sure some of that was just psychosomatic
 
Once you get aclimated try the hike to the top up the Barr trail, the last 3 miles or so above the tree line are brutal!
 
CT4ME said:
It would be interesting to see what a Pulse Oximeter says... I've picked one up, but haven't flown over 10,500 recent to give it a test. 'Live in Phoenix at 1,500, but have never had problems flying hours at 12,500.

ps... 'looked up the Cog Railway... neat... +1 bucket list!
Click to expand...

The donuts at the top are more than worth the trip. :yes:
 
e.pie said:
The donuts at the top are more than worth the trip. :yes:
Click to expand...

Heh. They seem like it, up there anyway.

They suck if you let them get cold and bring some down the hill for later. ;)

Definitely an "eat 'em while they're hot" kind of recipe.
 
Can anyone recommend a particular pulse O2 meter? Good to have brand, features, function, configuration or doesn't it matter that much?

Thanks.

Bill "the only significant post-build mod on my RV10 was a center console with O2 tank" Watson
 
Bill Watson said:
Can anyone recommend a particular pulse O2 meter? Good to have brand, features, function, configuration or doesn't it matter that much?

Thanks.

Bill "the only significant post-build mod on my RV10 was a center console with O2 tank" Watson
Click to expand...
I've got a $400 Nonin (price I paid several years ago) and a $28 unit from Walmart. Both read the same within a count or two. I think the one from Walmart may actually be better because it doesn't drain the batteries when off like the Nonin does (the batteries die in about 6 months of non-use in that one).
 
I got a Costco unit for around $25, and a $23 unit from Amazon. When compared with a professional medical unit (brand?) they were within 1 point. I see Costco is selling a couple of different models for around $45, that also do blood flow.
 
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