medical question

Mxsmanic wrote:



But it is also possible to have no clinical symptoms on the ground,
and yet show severe symptoms at altitude.

And its also possible to have no clinical symptoms at altitude. We can
"maybe" this all day and all night if you like.



How "dramatic" the effect you are claiming is a function of oxygen
delivery to the tissues, which is multifactorial, not tied SIMPLY to one
value.


Whatever the factors involved, flying while anemic is not a good idea.
You don't want to find out that you have the wrong combination of
factors by passing out at 5000 feet.

Are you going to be asymptomatic then magically pass out at 5k feet?
Hardly. And again, anemia is a matter of degrees. Normal hemoglobin
levels have a LOW normal value in the ballpark of 13-14 grams/dl. There
is a lower acceptable low value in women as opposed to men.

We dont begin to transfuse blood to patients until they are below 10
grams (75% of normal) and THIS is only if the patient is already
seriously ill or has heart disease (roughly paraphrased, too sick to
have a medical certificate for a pilots license) In non cardiac patients
we dont even consider transfusion unless below 9, 8 or even seven grams
(up to 50 percent of your normal blood concentration, depending on the
lack of clinical symptoms). Above the threshhold, patients are usually
managed just fine medically (iron supplementation, epogen) if they arent
actually bleeding somewhere..

Your supposed "wrong combination of factors" is utter nonsense.

So.. how about YOU stick to what you know.. flying sims.. leave the real
flying to the real pilots.. and leave the medical stuff to the folks who
deal with it for a living?