Hypoxia: Symptoms, Causes and Treatment

"TOS: Amok Time" an episode of the Star Wars, showed Captain Kirk suffering from hypoxia during the 'koon-ut-kal-if-fee' battle he fought with Spock in the year 2267.

In the episode of "DS9: One Little Ship", Miles O'Brien and Julian Bashir suffer from hypoxia in 2374. The oxygen runs out when they were in a miniaturized state inside of an isolinear access panel.

We all loved watching the Star Trek series and never missed an episode. They have time and again spoken about the medical condition, Hypoxia. Let us understand the condition Hypoxia, that has been so frequently mentioned in the "Final Frontier".

Hypoxia is a disease, in which there is lack of oxygen content within the body's tissues and vital organs like the brain. Hypoxic, anemic, hypemic, histotoxic and stagnant are the five different types of hypoxia.

Causes
Major causes of hypoxia include heart attacks, asthma, pulmonary embolism, severe head trauma, chronic alveolar hypoventilation, carbon monoxide poisoning, suffocation and choking.

Any circumstance due to which the body is deprived of oxygen can result in hypoxia. When the body doesn't receive the required amount of oxygen supply, it results in a low partial pressure of oxygen in the arterial blood. This leads to Hypoxic hypoxia. The major causes for Hypoxic hyponia are high altitude climbing, inadequate ventilation, or heart mechanism failure.

Anoxia results when there is no oxygen available. In Hypemic hypoxia, there is an obstruction to the ability of the blood to deliver oxygen. This is caused by carbon monoxide poisoning. When the required amount of oxygen reaching the cells is not utilized effectively due to some disorder in the cells, it causes Histotoxic hypoxia. Stagnant hypoxia, occurs when something obstructs the flow of the blood carrying an adequate amount of oxygen.

Symptoms
The symptoms of hypoxia can be insidious in its onset. The symptoms include:

• Air hunger
• Dizziness
• Severe headache
• Mental and Muscle fatigue
• Nausea
• Hot and cold flashes
• Tingling
• Visual Impairment
• Euphoria
• Blue discoloration of the skin
• Shortness of breath
• Seizures
• Coma
• Death, in some cases.

Treatment
Hypoxia can be a fatal condition. If someone if suffering from hypoxia, it is very important to establish the airway by assisted breathing. The individual should immediately be taken to a hospital, where he should be put on a ventilator to assist in breathing. The blood pressure and heart rate should be monitored. They should be kept in control with the help of fluids or medicines. Seizures, if any, should be suppressed. Sometimes cold blankets are used as they slow down the activity of the brain cells and decrease the need of oxygen. These should be the first steps in the treatment of hypoxia, before the underlying cause is treated.

During the path to recovery, the patient may experience amnesia, personality regression, hallucinations, memory loss, muscle spasms and twitches.

Recovery is possible when the brain has not been deprived of oxygen for a long period. Therefore, it is necessary to give adequate air and medical aid to the person suffering from hypoxia.

Captain Kirk's life was saved with the timely administration of 'tri-ox compound', that helped strengthen his cardiopulmonary system, allowing him to withstand the effects of hypoxia. In a similar fashion, timely medical attention and treatment should be sought, if you face with a case of Hypoxia in real life.