UKC

Anybody out there suffered the unfortunate experience of getting HACE? Be interested to know if the symptoms disappeared after descent. Or, did you have headaches and dizziness quite a long time after descent?
Yeah, you guessed it, I'm still getting them ....

In reply to Dean: Headaches for a day or so after for me but otherwise fine. If you are still getting headaches and dizziness even at sea level then I would suggest going to see your sympathetic local GP, who could if need be refer you to a neurologist. Although neurology outpatient appointments take about a year to come through in most places.... Long term problems after HACE are not common, there is some evidence of long term cerebral damage after trips beyond 6000m and particularly beyond 8000m - which is a bit of a worry! - but the evidence is scant and tends to involve clumsiness, difficulty with words etc.
How high were you when you got HACE? If you ran into trouble for a prolonged period at extreme altitude and had a slow difficult evacuation then it is feasible that some long term damage may have been done, but this is still unlikely. It's sudden brain swelling (cerebral oedema) that is due to the lack of oxygen and low atmospheric pressure that is the cause; when the oxygen availabilty and atmospheric pressure go up - by descending - the stimulus is removed and the oedema settles fairly rapidly.
Interestingly a field study demonstrated the marked effectiveness of Egb761 (ginko biloba; 160mg twice a day) in preventing AMS. In a study of 44 trekkers in Nepal at altitudes up to 5400m, Roncin reported that none of the Egb761-treated subjects developed AMS, compared with 41% in the placebo-treated group (P<0.001) (Roncin et al., 1996). If these findings are confirmed, Egb761 will easily be the most potent known prophylaxis for AMS, but we don't have a clue why it works.
Hope this is helpful, and that you are feeling better. From my experience the whole HACE thing leaves you quite rattled and wary about altitude far in excess of the short lived symptoms on the hill.

In reply to ben b:
Cheers for the reply. I've been down 2 weeks, and although feeling much better, still got a small headache, and a certain amount of dizziness. I've been to see my GP and had a referral to a neurologist - actually Charlie Clarke, who obviously has climbed a lot of big mountains and has suffered from HACE himself. I've yet to see him but he has been very good in giving an e-mail consultation.
I've definitely noticed my brain working slower which is worrying (has it stopped !!) but that also seems to be getting better as time goes on. Drinking has been a definite no no ....
I was about 6,000m when I got ill .... same old story, too high, too fast and the atmospheric pressure fell dramatically as well. Didn't descend very far for a while ... trying to stay on expedition, stupidly. But a real lesson as to how blind you, and your partners, can be to a potentially lethal situation.
Very interesting you should mention ginko biloba - I was taking this on this trip. I think it helps in a small way when acclimatising properly, but if you get into the area where you can potentially get HACE or HAPE, then it doesn't make much difference. Diamox didn't seem to do the job either.
Certainly an episode of HACE makes you wary of high altitude - I've cancelled some plans to go higher. But in terms of Alpine stuff, I just know to be careful about how high, how quickly I go.
Anyway, who wants to go plodding up snowy slopes at high altitude ? Instead of dreaming of food on this expedition, we were dreaming of a sunny day at Tremadog, fantastic water ice at Celliac and a glorious bivvy on the Frendo ...
now that's what I call climbing.

In reply to Dean: poof

In reply to Dean:

I got an article off the internat last week i think it was on rockclimbing.com in the articles section

In reply to Dean: Well it sounds like you've done pretty well with a referrral to Charlie Clarke...as you say the best cure is prevention, and therefore slow acclimatisation (I conked out at 4800m in bolivia, but have been fine before at 6000m with slower acclimatisation). It's a fun old world eh? Glad you're getting better.