I studied lots of resources of information before writing the article devoted to the basis of mountain medicine. Now, I’m ready to submit it to the readers ‘ court. The final variant had not less than four chapters and about thirty sections not accounting the attachments. I realize that it’s impossible to publish it in the periodicals and has resolved to divide it into three themes - Medical training before an expedition to the mountains, the medical component of mountain hunting and First aid in mountains.
Sergey Rudnev, expert on certification of the ACC of the Ministry of Emergency Situations of Russia
Before the trip
The hunter who has taken the decision to go for hunting on the highlands, knows or guess about obstacles he’ll meet there. They connect with the lack of oxygen, significant temperature fluctuations, ultraviolet radiation and physical and psychological stress when the daily regime changes. The traveler can protect himself if follow the next rules. You have to be physically and psychologically trained before going to the highlands. Try to avoid serious psychological overloads in your work or family before the trip. We recommend you to visit such doctors as a dentist for a dental sanitation, a cardiologist to make a cardiogram, a audiologist if you have polyps or of inflammatory diseases of the nose, throat or ears and a dermatologist to check the fungal infections of the skin, or tumors if you have ones. If you are going to visit areas, known by their infectious or tropical diseases, we advise you to vaccinate or take all necessary medicine you’ll need there.
After getting the information about your health you can make the next step - to start to correct your condition following the doctor’s recommendations the best time to make to make the correction is form one month to a few days before the trip. The most used correction drugs, used for this purpose, are to intensify metabolism, improves oxygen delivery, tissue respiration and muscle function, antioxidants, multivitamins, immunostimulants and adaptogens. But you have to consult your doctor before taking this medicine. I, from my side, can recommend such drugs as lipoxen or olifen, cytochrome C, Actovegin, Mexidol, Mildronate, Phenotropil. Vitamin complexes supradin, berocca, complivit and others. The adaptogens,which are widely spead are tinctures based on vegetable raw materials (ginseng, lemongrass, radiola rosea) and raw materials of animal origin (antlers of maral and other types of deer, beaver jet, bear bile, extracts from marine animals). Polyoxidonium, amixin, and iodantipyrin have immunostimulating properties.
What to put into your medicine kit.
The next level of preparation for a highland hunting is to choose the right drugs for your first aid kit. You need to continue to take medicine which have started to take while preparing for the trip. You should definitely take your medication which help to adapt you for being on the highlands and prevent from the development of altitude sickness. These include nifedipine, diacarb (acetazolamide, diamox), panangine, dexamethasone.
We recommend to use special lotions and to test them beforehand to protect exposed areas of the skin from UV radiation, chapping and frostbite. There is not the universal recipe of such lotion which suits for everybody. But we can recommend some. First of all you need to know your skin type and if you have allergy for some components. Protective lotion for the usage in the mountains must have a protection factor (SPF) from UV not less than 20 and provide protection from UV rays in the widest possible spectrum (UVA+UVB). It mustn't dry fast or to froze in the pack before you are going to use it.
You should also put medicine for suddenly developed diseases, injuries, and help with the exacerbation of your chronic diseases.
If we talk about practical side, all drugs packages have to be small and light. All pills have to be packed into the polymer packaging, don’t take extra. Use the additional package to protect medicine. All bandaging supplies has to be in the original polymer packaging, use pills and lotion tubes made from polymer, and don't take ones, packed in glass or metal packages Don't use the secondary packaging (made from a thick cardboard) and we advise to write the expiration date on the instruction paper and keep it in the waterproof bag with a zip lock. We advise to keep the instruction how to use the first aid supplies in the same place. You never know who will use the kit to help you. Check the expiration dates of all drugs you have already have in your first aid kit, add the ones you have used already and changed the ones with the damage package before putting it into your travel bag. It’d be better to re-read the instruction how to put the medicine in the kit, what to in in the first turn and to train the simplest skills of providing assistance, such as applying a tourniquet and a pressure bandage, immobilizing a fracture and performing an intramuscular injection. You will be prepared for unexpected events and nothing tragic will happen if you follow these rules.
The Case
Like all mountain hunting equipment, the first aid kit must have minimal weight and size characteristics and maximum protection from environmental factors. First of all, is the protection from physical influences – bumps, falls, moisture and temperature changes. It should have high ergonomic characteristics, provide free visual search, a convenient access to the content and quick recovery of attachments. Success of the assistance process depends on how fast you can find and remove from the bag all necessary banging supplies. If you carry the medicine kit with you , it has to be adapted to the hunters equipment and suited to all upper layers of your clothes or your backpack. It's hard to follow these requirements but the implementation of these requirements is possible, although this is a way of compromise. The usage of hard boxes made from modern polymer guarantee the high level of protection of the content but the low resistant to the low temperatures and a low degree of visualization and the recoverability of the content. The use of rigid metal cases does not provide the required weight and size characteristics. Fabric cases provide high performance and ergonomic characteristics, although the protective characteristics of fabric cases are lower. It depends on you what kind of the case you’ll choose. My experience shows that first-aid kits and cases for them, produced in an industrial, not by artisanal method, have higher performance characteristics.
We should say some words about the protection of the contents of the first-aid kit from water and moisture. It's not obligatory for a mountain first aid kit, but the usage of moisture-proof fasteners, valves, wings and covers for fabric cases and special seals for rigid cases does not present technical difficulties and is quite feasible.
( to be continued)
