Health and Beauty

Surviving The Heat Wave – Heat Exhaustion is a Killer

Advanced hyperthermia (hyper = excessive, thermia = heat) can result in heatstroke or heat exhaustion. This occurs when the body produces or absorbs more heat than it can dissipate. Body temperatures above 40°C are life-threatening. At 41°C brain death begins, and at 45°C death is nearly certain.

Heat exhaustion can come with muscle cramps, mental confusion, nausea and vomiting. The body can become just too hot to produce sweat, and so the condition escalates, as perspiration is what the body relies on to keep the temperature down. So victims won’t be sweating, may become confused and hostile, often experience headache, and may seem drunk. Due to dehydration, blood pressure may drop significantly, leading to possible fainting or dizziness, especially if the victim stands suddenly. Complaints of feeling hot may be followed by chills and trembling, as is the case in fever.

As is seen in the news during every heat wave, the elderly are prone to suffer the worst from heatstroke and many cases lead to death. This is because they generally have an underlying illness, medication use, declining adaptive thermoregulatory mechanisms (to keep themselves cool), poor access to air-conditioning, cognitive obstacles to self-care, and limited social support networks.

But it can affect everyone so use your commonsense and don’t exercise in the middle of a hot day (preferably stay inside) and keep your fluids up. Hot Sydney weather recently hasn’t invovled much sun so heat exhaustion may not even be considered when one is feeling ill. But all this illness requires is excess heat – you can get it from being in a hot house.