a day in the life: the nightly routine...

john - manang view point

note: john gave permission for “study talk” in this blog entry.


john came to nepal with a couple of research projects he’d put together while at massachusetts general hospital.  one study revolves around sleep and sleep disturbance due to altitude.  most people, or all people eventually, have trouble sleeping at altitude.  there are a few medications that are safe to take at altitude, which help regulate breathing and control other conditions that are known causes of altitude related sleep problems.  two of the best medications are acetazolamide (diamox) and temazepam.  both drugs have been tested against placebo, but never has anyone tested them against each other.  so, that’s what john is up to.

 

it’s a great study, and the information will be invaluable to many trekkers, but we have not been able to recruit as many participants as we had hoped.  one reason in that the number of people trekking through nepal, at least on our side of nepal, is at a all time low.  and i think the other reason has something to do with trekkers being well, hippies.  so many people will only participate if the remedy is herbal.  ugh.

so, we have become somewhat desperate here at the HRA.  each night, john and i travel around to all the lodges in town announcing the study and asking (or begging) for participants.  lately, the other HRA doctors have also become involved with the recruiting.  it should not be a demanding task, but when people discover that we are physicians from the HRA, the time turns into q&a about medical conditions, altitude, and trail conditions.  sometimes we are in a lodge dinning area for over an hour, and we leave without a single test subject.  again, ugh.

please send good vibes, prayers, happy thoughts (or whatever you call them) our way.  we seriously need a miracle just to pull off one study!