Hiking at altitude after decompression disease

[Sanet]

Hi,
I had decompression disease about 2 years ago and now want to go hiking at an altitude of about 9900 feet. Would that be a risk at all?

 

[RainPilot]

It would take so long to get up there I suspect you'd be fine. That altitude is also very close to an airliner cabin and they get there much quicker so if you fly ok you should be fine.

Maybe @Duke Dive Medicine or @Dr Simon Mitchell could give a more medical answer.

 

[Sanet]

Thanks! That's a very logical explanation. Think I'll be totally okay doing the hike then.

 

[Schwob]

Hi,
I had decompression disease about 2 years ago and now want to go hiking at an altitude of about 9900 feet. Would that be a risk at all?

For altitude sickness yes, possibly at least.(If you can, give yourself time to acclimatize at say 6k or 7k feet for a a day or a night or both before exerting yourself higher up, definitely drink more water than you think you need, get your rest and your sleep.)

For DCS, if not following a dive at all, I don't think so, but hopefully someone actually knowing replies.

Following a dive or multiple dives, definitely a risk, just like flying in a rather weakly pressurized cabin.

 

[RainPilot]

I think the OP is worried that she may exacerbate a previous DCS incident.

Sanet as far as I know most DCS issues, once resolved, stay resolved. By that I mean that the underlying gas bubbles etc are long gone so very unlikely that there is anything left to expand now.

That all being said, it's always a good idea to check on these things before they become an issue.

 

[Bubblesong]

My friend got altitude sickness hiking that high, (and he is not a diver, but a very fit and young pilot.) He thought it was due to dehydration.

 

[RainPilot]

My friend got altitude sickness hiking that high, (and he is not a diver, but a very fit and young pilot.) He thought it was due to dehydration.

Yeah it's really important to drink a lot of fluids in a high altitude scenario. Dehydration exacerbates all sorts of health issues, even for us as divers.

A colleague of mine some years back was the commander of the Nepalese Mountain Warfare School in the Himalayas. The stories he would tell of the foreign (unacclimated) visitors coming for training was always a laugh.

He used to have difficulty getting them to understand that altitude is like a desert and you need to hydrate accordingly. This was with guys coming from Iraq and Afghanistan deployment and accustomed to high hydration requirements.

 

[Lorenzoid]

Do you have some reason to suspect a greater than average susceptibility to DCS, such as recurring bouts of it? Or was the DCS incident 2 years ago the only time you ever had DCS? Was it severe or mild? As I'm not a doctor and have no special expertise in DCS, I don't know how these factors may be relevant, but it seems like they could be.

But as RainPilot pointed out, if you have been flying in a commercial aircraft (typically pressurized to about 8,000 feet of altitude) from time to time over the past 2 years since the DCS and experienced no further symptoms, it seems unlikely that your body would react differently at another 1,900 feet or so of altitude.

 

[boulderjohn]

A friend of mine got DCS a few years ago. He lives at about 7,000 feet, and he lived there while he was still driving in to Denver for his chamber treatments. He is frequently hiking at altitudes well above 10,000 feet.

 

[Duke Dive Medicine]

Hi,
I had decompression disease about 2 years ago and now want to go hiking at an altitude of about 9900 feet. Would that be a risk at all?

For DCS symptom recurrence, not at all. Other posters have given sound advice about altitude acclimatization.

Best regards,
DDM