welcome back news for Jax helping you
live healthy the official start of
summer is just one week away today but
it certainly is already hot and with the
summer season comes the summer heat
joining me now to talk about heat
exhaustion heat stroke and how you can
prevent it is dr. Craig to delve in with
family practices associates of Orange
Park good morning we appreciate you
coming in and you know every year we
talk about children who died in cars and
different things when it comes to the
heat it is something we have to be so
attuned to here in Florida yes so if
you're parking a car and and you're
gonna leave pets or kids in the car
you're going to run in the store and
pick up something quick you have to
remember you might get sidetracked and
in 20 minutes the temperature in the car
is going to rise about 35 degrees
another myth that we have is thinking
that we can crack the windows about two
inches and that prevents that and you
say that's just not enough so so if the
temperature is greater than 70 degrees
we we encourage people not to bring
their pets because they would be 104 105
by the time they come back out and stay
close and talk about what that does to
your body when your body gets the
temperatures of that level for a long
period of time well you suffer from heat
exhaustion heat stroke but things that
we can do to prevent heatstroke are
hydrating ourselves and people don't
realize is but the everyone all my
patients come up and ask how much water
should I be drinking how much fluid
should I be drinking to prevent this and
the average rule is if you weigh 200
pounds you take half your weight and you
drink a hundred ounces of fluids a day
okay if you're working outside and
you're sweating or if you're playing
sports you might require more and talk
about pre hydrating is that true that
you can drink water you know before you
get out there and really start to sweat
right hydrating yourself before wearing
protective clothing loose protective
clothing wearing a hat sunblock staying
in a cool environment so certain people
there are certain risk factors for
heatstroke and heat exhaustion females
that are pregnant young children and the
elderly some elderly people with their
medical conditions and the medicines
they're taking or
more at risk pregnant patients are more
risk because they're carrying two people
and the young kids they're not developed
a neurological system to to to fight the
the symptoms and what are those symptoms
the first signs that you might need to
address
well symptoms sometimes you feel real
tired fatigue confusion your skin is
cold and clammy
your heart rate might be elevated and at
that point your best bet is to get in
some shade and hydrate hydrate and so
the biggest mechanism we have in the
human body to stay cool is sweating the
problem Florida is once the humidity is
about 75%
technically that's almost every day the
cooling mechanism is less efficient so
the fact that we sweat the air doesn't
evaporate the sweat to cool us down as
easily and we are seeing now especially
with kids and sports that they're
requiring them every 20 minutes to take
a water break because really if you're
starting to get thirsty you're already
starting to become dehydrated so the old
real thought is once you feel thirsty
you're behind the eight ball you're
already dehydrated okay and quickly when
when is it urgent that you need to
either call 9-1-1 or get some help it's
so much real confused delirious if
they're real their heart rates very fast
if they were real pale then I would seek
medical attention either way but other
than that get in a cool spot get some
water and monitor it and then maybe just
take a little bit of a break how long
should you stay out of that environment
before you go back in that the varies on
the person their health status
I'll just hydrating staying cool and I
would do probably for the rest of the
day okay
alright alright keep that in mind for
our kids because they definitely will
push it and it's up to us parents to
make sure that they are safe appreciate
you coming in