Beware of heat stroke

THE DEATH of a young taxi driver from heat stroke is a warning that as the scorching heat of the summer sun continues to convert our beloved Earth into a smoldering microwave, more and more persons would succumb to this serious and even fatal medical condition.

We should be reminded of the hundred deaths reported in the south of France in August 2003, the victims mostly senior citizens not only in nursing homes or hospices but even in their houses.

Our normal body temperature (37 degrees Celsius or 8.6 degrees Fahrenheit) is primarily controlled by the so- called Thermostat or Temperature Regulating Center which is located at the Pre-Optic Area, Anterior Hypothalamus in the brain. This is the same area where antipyretics- fever lowering medicines like aspirin and acetaminophen/paracetamol- exert their effects.

The skin receives about 15% of our total blood volume (about 750 ml from the 5000 ml) which it uses to excrete toxic waste in the form of sweat as well as to help maintain a normal body temperature thru the following mechanisms.

Pores of the skin open when the surface blood vessels or capillaries dilate in response to warm ambient or surrounding temperature, thus allowing radiation to occur or the escape of body heat in the form of invisible infrared rays, which can be visualized with an infrared glasses as a wavelike rainbow colors emanating from the surface of the body. Our mothers used to lower a high fever gently touching our warm bodies with a drop of alcohol with the hope that the cooler hands would suck out the heat from the body of a febrile child. Of course, the most common way is by doing tepid sponge bath in which a face towel is dipped in lukewarm water and is gently rubbed on the different parts of the body, starting from the hands and feet towards the body, this involves evaporation.

Mothers would be the first people to relate their fear and anxiety if they have a child who goes into convulsions or seizures whenever the child has a fever, that's why their pediatrician has outlined detailed instructions on how to deal with it, including inserting suppositories into the anus of the febrile child.

Adults too, especially elderlies can suffer the effects of very hot weather. We have two types of heat; wet or moist heat in which the high temperature is accompanied by high humidity resulting to profuse sweating, which many women do not like because the sweat smudge their made-up faces and dry heat which is common during summers in temperate zone countries like the United States, particularly Texas, Arizona, New Mexico, Nevada- which is more dangerous because the person does not perspire as much, thus the heat builds up inside the body leading to an earlier and more serious heat stroke.

At this juncture, it is well to establish some basic terms. Diaphoresis is the excessive sweating brought about by fever or any high temperature way up the normal range of 36.8-37.2 degree Celsius or 98-99 degrees Fahrenheit. Hyperhydrosis is also excessive, profuse perspiration due to the so-called autonomic imbalance, the sweat gland being very unique among all the tissues in the body which receive both a Sympathetic nerve fiber and a Parasympathetic nerve fiber, the effects of which are antagonistic. The sweat gland receives only one nerve fiber, a sympathetic nerve but the chemical released at its tip is not its usual nor epinephrine but the neurotransmitter of its opposite Parasympathetic, which is acetylcholine. This is the reason why persons bothered or even embarrassed by the excessive sweating especially of their hands, the doctor honestly tells him/her that there are indeed, medicines for the condition but the side effects of these medicines could also be bothersome, so the bottom line for the most part, the doctor advises the person to learn to live with it.

Sweat is made of hypotonic sodium chloride with a concentration of less than 0.9% NaCl. Thus if a person continuously perspire due to hot weather, he is losing both precious water as well as electrolytes, sodium and chloride and this massive losses have deleterious effects on the different cells of the body especially brain.

Pr i n te d a n d d i s t r i b u te d by P ressReader