Avoiding Heat Stroke

Released: July 26, 2010

Warm weather is wonderful. However, sometimes you can overdo it-- especially if you are active or exercising.

As we wind down the summer break for area schools, fall sports practices—especially football—will begin soon, posing a challenge for coaches and players to not push too hard and risk heat stroke and exhaustion.

There are three problems children (and adolescents, as well as adults) can have in hot weather. These conditions are largely brought on by heat and dehydration -- and with proper care, you can prevent them:

• Heat cramps are muscular pains and spasms due to heavy exertion, caused by a loss of water due to heavy sweating.
   
• Heat exhaustion typically occurs when people over-exert themselves in a warm, humid place. Mild shock results because blood flow to the skin increases while flow to vital organs decreases. The victim may experience nausea, headaches, or dizziness.

·         …and heat stroke is the most serious heat emergency because it is life-threatening. The victim's temperature control system shuts down, and body temperatures can rise so high that brain damage and death might result if the body is not cooled quickly. The pulse becomes rapid but weak, with shallow breathing, and the skin turns red and hot, with changes in level of consciousness.

You can prevent heat-related illnesses. The important thing is to stay well-hydrated, to make sure that your body can get rid of extra heat, and to be sensible about exertion in hot, humid weather.

Your sweat is your body's main system for getting rid of extra heat. When you sweat, and the water evaporates from your skin, the heat that evaporates the sweat comes mainly from your skin. As long as blood is flowing properly to your skin, extra heat from the core of your body is "pumped" to the skin and removed by sweat evaporation.

If you don’t sweat enough, you can’t get rid of extra heat well, and you also can't get rid of heat as well if blood is not flowing to the skin.

Dehydration will make it harder for you to cool off in two ways: if you are dehydrated you won't sweat as much, and your body will try to keep blood away from the skin to keep your blood pressure at the right level in the core of your body. But, since you lose water when you sweat, you must make up that water to keep from becoming dehydrated. If the air is humid, it's harder for your sweat to evaporate -- this means that your body cannot get rid of extra heat as well when it's muggy as it can when it's relatively dry.

The best fluid to drink when you are sweating is water. Although there is a little salt in your sweat, you don't really lose that much salt with your sweat, except in special circumstances; taking salt tablets may raise your body's sodium level to hazardous levels.

"Sport drinks" will also work, but water is usually easier to obtain. And any kind of drinkable water -- tap water or bottled spring water -- will work. There are bottled waters around that have extra minerals and other things, and in some cases they may be beneficial for you, but plain water works just fine.

It's also important to be sensible about how much you exert yourself in hot weather. The hotter and more humid it is, the harder it will be for you to get rid of excess heat.

The clothing you wear makes a difference, too: wearing loose-fitting, flowing clothes allow the body to breathe, and the lighter the clothing is, the easier you can cool off.

Football players are notoriously prone to heat illness, since football uniforms cover nearly the whole body, and since football practice usually begins in late summer when the temperature outside is highest; therefore, football players should pay extra attention to the fluids they drink and lose: teams should consider limiting practice and wearing light clothing for practice on very hot days, and athletes should be able to drink all the water they want during practice.