We are active, exercising, skiing, hiking every day. We are lean. We eat healthy diets.Yet we get high blood pressure. Our doctors think it is our age, genetics, or whatever. Now we know it could be something else: hypoxia. Pat was on medicine to control her pressures when she had a life-threatening allergic reaction. Another drug gave her side effects. Then her cardiologist Dr. Warren Johnson did a sleep study and found she was hypoventilating at night. Immediately after starting to sleep on Oxygen her blood pressure is normal. “If hypoxia is doing that to your blood pressure, what is it doing to your brain heart, muscles, lungs…” Pat wonders. I also had my blood pressure problem cured by sleeping on oxygen. And guess what? It is as easy as putting on pajamas. Two small prongs enter your nose and you don’t even feel it after a few minutes.
Category Archives: Medicine
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The air is thinner up here!
More and more people of all ages travel to and reside in the mountains. Scientists and health care providers are just beginning to discover the effect of high altitude on health.
I have practiced medicine in Frisco, Colorado at 9,100 feet since 2000. Before that I worked on Saipan at sea level for 20 years. The difference has made me aware of special considerations when caring for people from newborns to retirees at high altitude. Simple measures can be taken to save a vacation or preserve an active life style in the mountains. All visitors who are not pregnant should consider taking Diamox (acetazolamide) starting two days before travel. Tourists and residents should buy an inexpensive home pulse oximeter to monitor oxygen levels. Anyone staying for more than a week should pursue testing for night time hypoxia and pulmonary hypertension when experiencing difficulty sleeping, fatigue or trouble breathing
Read articles on the Ebert Family Clinic Website for more information. I will add new information, discuss symptoms and diagnoses, and respond to questions. We have a power point available to interested groups. Personal evaluations and consults can be scheduled at Ebert Family Clinic with myself for children and Laura Amedro FNP for adults or children
