Tag: illness

Researchers reporting in the New England Journal of Medicine say that some people are sensitive to low barometric pressures while flying in commercial aircraft. Very low barometric pressures are uncommon in modern aircraft but sea-level air pressures are not the norm either. Some passengers flying on long commercial flights experience feeling of illness similar to mountain climbers who experience altitude sickness.
Feelings of weakness, along with headaches, nausea, mental confusion, fuzzy thinking, leg cramps, swollen hands and feet, dry scratchy throat, and disturbances in sleep seem to be the cluster of symptoms experienced by those passengers flying about 6,500 feet. Even alarming symptoms like blood clots are being experienced more and more among long flight flyers.
Aside from the low barometric pressure, some of the symptoms can also be attributed to prolonged sitting, foul cabin air, fatigue, dehydration and even jet lag.… Read the rest