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Healthy You Archives |
Protecting Your Health
When Your Body Overheats
How to Prevent Heat StrokeIf you’re planning hot-weather activities…
Besides hot weather, many other things can make you sweat: Fevers are an immune response triggered by infection that signals your brain to turn up the heat and help kill invading bacteria and viruses. Exercise generates extra body heat as your muscles burn calories. Medications (such as beta blockers, diuretics, antihistamines and antidepressants) and health conditions (like heart problems and Parkinson’s disease) occasionally interfere with your body’s cooling system. “Too much heat too fast can trigger heat-related illness that gradually gets worse if it’s not addressed,” says Dunne’s colleague, exercise physiologist Jennifer Kornhausl. First come muscle cramps in the abdomen, legs or arms. Then comes heat exhaustion—clammy skin, headaches, excessive sweating, dizziness, nausea and confusion. If the body is not cooled down immediately, potentially deadly heat stroke may result. “Core body temperature spikes to 105 degrees or higher,” Dunne says. “Blood pressure drops, sweating ceases and the skin becomes red and dry. The patient can go into a coma or become delirious.” To treat someone with heat stroke, have him lie down out of the heat and give him water or a salt beverage like Gatorade. “Use a fan and apply wet cloths or cold compresses to the victim’s skin,” Dunne says. “Call 9-1-1 if he goes into shock or loses consciousness.”
Want to Know More about treating heat stroke? Click here. This page last updated 2/12/08 04:08 PM
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