Canned "Recreational Oxygen" for elevation sickness?

[Muddyboots]

I wonder if one of those oxygen generators could help. I saw ad they are good up to 10,000' so question is battery life or recharge.

 

[Coldfinger]

Has anyone used one of the canned oxygen bottles that claim to have 90%+ pure oxygen inside as a way to help with elevation sickness? In my mind it might be useful after the sickness kicks in almost as a treatment, not prior to as a preventative measure.

I ask because i have an elk hunt this year around 7k, 7.5k' and I currently live at about 500'. The last time I was at 9k I had a pretty bad case and I had to be driven to a lower elevation cause I couldn't do it myself. I've never had problems at 6k, though. I'm thinking $20 or $30 is pretty cheap insurance if they are only slightly helpful.

Cause someone will probably mention it, I'm certainly not trying to find an easy replacement for being in shape. I've already started physical training and will be ready to go when the time comes!

While chatting with a rancher that allowed me to hunt his land in Co at approximately 7500 ft I told him I had a nasty headache for some reason. He ran to the kitchen and brought me a couple of bananas and watched me eat them and kept an eye on me for a bit. I'm from 1800 ft and was completely oblivious to elevation sickness, I thought it was just from the 27 hour drive. The following years he always asked if I brought bananas.

 

[esshup]

Stupid, silly question, but what about a pony bottle of O2 from a welding supply store? I use the "T" sized tanks to put O2 in water to trans port fish all the time, and go thru at least one "T" sized tank per 2 days when hauling fish. Np prescription needed like there would be for an O2 generator or a medical grade O2 bottle. The welding O2 tanks are available for rent.

 

[ndking1126]

This is the one I tried that did not work for me >>> https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07J4W5H85/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_image_o08_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Good luck!

Feenix, what did it not help you with? Actual elevation sickness that you had to decrease elevation for, or some of the typical early pre-symptoms like light headed after climbing a hill?

 

[joemcd2]

The whole point is to prevent it and getting to altitude 3 days in advance of your hunt has been scientifically proven to be huge step to prevent the possibility by allowing your body to Naturally Acclimate over the 3 day period. The average person takes 3 days to acclimate so why screw up a 5 day hunt with your body trying to acclimate while you are hunting? Not everybody can hit the ground running first day but this can help. Nothing can absolutely prevent it but the 3 day acclimation is the easiest step you can take to help prevent it.

If you show up out of shape, not much you can do period. If you have pre-existing health conditions the 3 day may help but again there may not be ANYTHING you can do under those circumstances.

I cycle between 4-5k miles a year on a road bike. Very much in tip too shape. Went to Breckinridge after Christmas this past year and got altitude sickness. Couldn't get my O2 above 85%. I went through 6 of those cans of recreational oxygen a day. It would elevate my O2 levels to 90% for about 10-20 minutes and then would return back to 85%. After the 5th day I couldn't take it any longer and went down to Denver the remainder of the trip. I regretted not bringing my aviation bottle that I use in our plane. Will never make that mistake again.

 

[FEENIX]

Feenix, what did it not help you with? Actual elevation sickness that you had to decrease elevation for, or some of the typical early pre-symptoms like light headed after climbing a hill?

I live at 3333' and hunt between 5-7K' so it is not an elevation issue or cardio/climbing issue. I just wanted to try it just in case. I use to work on aircraft for 10 years and used to take advantage of 100 % oxygen, I assure you Boost's claim is no where near.

 

[ndking1126]

I cycle between 4-5k miles a year on a road bike. Very much in tip too shape. Went to Breckinridge after Christmas this past year and got altitude sickness. Couldn't get my O2 above 85%. I went through 6 of those cans of recreational oxygen a day. It would elevate my O2 levels to 90% for about 10-20 minutes and then would return back to 85%. After the 5th day I couldn't take it any longer and went down to Denver the remainder of the trip. I regretted not bringing my aviation bottle that I use in our plane. Will never make that mistake again.

Thanks for the feedback. Very good input on using multiple cans. How many breathes do you think you got per can?

 

[Mike Matteson]

The whole point is to prevent it and getting to altitude 3 days in advance of your hunt has been scientifically proven to be huge step to prevent the possibility by allowing your body to Naturally Acclimate over the 3 day period. The average person takes 3 days to acclimate so why screw up a 5 day hunt with your body trying to acclimate while you are hunting? Not everybody can hit the ground running first day but this can help. Nothing can absolutely prevent it but the 3 day acclimation is the easiest step you can take to help prevent it.

If you show up out of shape, not much you can do period. If you have pre-existing health conditions the 3 day may help but again there may not be ANYTHING you can do under those circumstances.

It take longer than 3 days. It helps but it's more like 7 to 10 days, and a total of 6 weeks to be totally ready.

 

[CoachChris]

It take longer than 3 days. It helps but it's more like 7 to 10 days, and a total of 6 weeks to be totally ready.

Purely anecdote
I have a personal training client here in Teton County that has "lived" here for 6yrs.
She never spends more than a couple of weeks here before flying to a lower altitude for a week or more.
In 6yrs she still hasn't acclimatized.

 

[riggingslinger]

I live near sea level and fly into most of the mountain airports in Colorado often. Telluride being the highest at 10,000. Portable OX will help a lot with improving eyesight since your eyes need a lot of oxygen to function properly and with mental alertness. Both very important during your hunt. The first few times I overnighted in KTEX I got intense headaches and could barely make the walk from my room to the lobby in the building next door. The local ski patrol told me the biggest problem people have there is dehydration. Since then I have started hydrating heavily before, during and after my trips to the mountains. It has helped a lot. I suggest using Ox for the eyes and brain and water for the body.

 

[ndking1126]

For anyone interested, I spent the night in Memphis and then the next night in Amarillo at 3800'. The next day I arrived at our location (7k') around 1pm and was scouting by 4pm. For about 2 hours we walked around completing maybe 2.5 miles of walking. This was about 7.5k to 8.2k in elevation. We slept at 7k that night and all nights after. The next morning at a different location we hiked up to about 9k, stayed and glassed for about 3 hours and then hiked back down. It was quite steep at times and I had worked up a decent sweat despite it being about 28, 30* and stripping off a few layers. We never went back to this location.

The next day (first day of the season) we went back to the first location and hiked about 10 miles total. Again about 7.5k to about 8.3k.

The next day we only hiked about 6 miles, but it included a very steep hike/climb up the side of a mountain to 9k. Frankly, we almost quit more than once because it was killing our lungs and legs!! We came down and I didn't do anything other than sit in the truck for about 3 hours and then chose a close location for the evening hunt.

The next and final day of our hunt, I hiked about 5, 6 miles total. I could have done more but I just didn't feel like it (haha) and the places we chose to hunt didn't require it.

All that with zero altitude sickness! We did not take medicine prior to, but we all were well hydrated. I didn't take any of the recreational oxygen canisters as I ran out of time just trying to get ready and out the door. They would have been greatly appreciated on the climb up the mountain on the second day of the hunt though!

The other 4 who are SWAT were in better shape than me, but I held my own. The only time I slowed them down was the last quarter of the way up the steep mountain. Ankle surgery and recovery, recovering from covid, throwing my back out, and the occasional sprinkling of laziness kept me from being in the shape I wanted to be in, but overall I was good to go.

For the hunt itsself, we saw about 15 cow elks, a spike, and about 15 mule deer. We saw more fresh elk tracks and poop than I ever expected to, so the fact that we didn't shoot a bull was hard to stomach.

The first morning, we were cow calling with an actual cow and then a bull joined in and was moving towards the group when another hunter shot it. The second morning we heard two elks bugling for quite a while, but couldn't get them to come closer with the cow call. Waiting so long to chase it might have been our biggest mistake of the hunt.

The third morning we went back to the place we could hear the bugling given, well... the bugling..., the ridiculous number of tracks and the lack of other hunters we saw the second morning. We split up into two groups and hunted about 700 yards apart. The northern group was calling to a bull to their north and we were trying to work one to our south and it was going really well. There was a dirt road between us and a backwoods idiot drove up and shot a mule deer buck out of his truck (of course completely illegal) and that ended our morning hunt. We never heard the bulls again. We were all furious!!

Nothing happened of note on the evening of the third night.

Overall, we had an amazing time. I still can't get over the amount of wildlife and tracks we saw. On the bottom slope of the steep mountain we climbed, we saw more mule deer tracks than I've ever seen in one area in my life regardless of the type of animal. I wouldn't have believed someone if I hadn't seen it myself. We also found one shed antler. (I'm going to create a post a little later in the mule deer section about it as I have some questions.)

The family that hosted us was amazing and the guys I met were all great. Sorry the post ended up being so long!

 

[TROY GRGURICH]

Talk to your family Doctor before you head out to the high altitudes. Mine prescribed me with a medicine to prevent the altitude sickness. Start taking a day or two before, thru the first couple of days there.

 

[Bob Wright]

I talked to my friend, a retired USAF Colonel and Flight Surgeon. He's a doctor and eye surgeon. I asked if he new the physiological affects of altitude sickness, particularly when 02 doesn't help me. He said at least with my situation, it's "edema" where fluids move from blood to cell structures causing swelling of affected tissues. This could be skin, organs of any kind. The remedy would be a diuretic and down in elevation.
My visit to a local hospital that day had my blood saturation at 95% O2.
Bottom line, I stage a day at lower elevations before finishing the trip at higher elevation. It certainly can kill and the primary response if symptoms worsen is to get down to a lower elevation quickly.
Acetazolomide is a prescription but after taking it, everything tastes like metal. Ughhh. Not pleasant. I'll just stage at different elevations.

 

[ndking1126]

One unique observation I had and couldn't explain was the last evening I got to my hunting location quite early. I was sitting behind a very large fallen tree as cover. Because I was sitting on the ground for longer than usual, my lower back started hurting so i would lie down for 4,5 minutes at a time (early on, not during the prime evening hours). This was probably 8700, 8800 feet. When I would lie down, I'd have little floating, translucent lines and dots in my vision. When I sat back up, they shortly went away. It hadn't happened anytime before that. Elevation is an interesting thing.