Don't Try to Handle Heat Exhaustion or Heat Stroke on Your Own

When you grab a jacket or decide to wear shorts, you’re making a decision about thermoregulation without realizing it, using your brain and hypothalamus. 

This simply means you’re compensating for weather changes by adding or subtracting clothes for comfort, which also prevents you from freezing or overheating.

Temperature problems can become dangerous when your body can’t regulate heat properly. The result can be heat exhaustion, which leads to serious issues if not managed correctly. 

While you can take some steps to reduce the impact of this condition, you shouldn’t try to manage it on your own. 

Our medical team at Houston Medical ER in Spring and Houston, Texas, can help with many urgent issues, including heat exhaustion and related illnesses. Let’s review the basics of heat exhaustion and explore why medical help is crucial.

Heat exhaustion basics

Due to overexposure to heat, this condition causes an abnormally high internal body temperature that’s frequently below 104 F (40 C). This happens more frequently than other heat illnesses, and without proper treatment, can develop into heatstroke, which has far more severe symptoms and can be fatal.

In situations where you’re exposed to high temperatures and develop heat exhaustion, your body loses electrolytes (specifically sodium) when you sweat. Profuse sweating under these conditions can make it very difficult to recover fluids enough to prevent heat exhaustion and its other heat-related complications.

Common causes and symptoms

Constant exposure to high temperatures, especially during physical labor or other physical activities, often leads to excessive sweating and heat exhaustion. The inability to regulate your internal temperature can also happen due to other factors, such as:

• Drinking alcohol, which affects temperature regulation
• Dehydration
• Overdressing in very warm weather

Very young and very old people are more prone to heat exhaustion, and obesity, certain medications, a high heat index, and sudden temperature changes all affect your risks. When it happens, expect symptoms like:

• Heavy sweating
• Cool, moist skin
• Dizziness
• Fatigue
• Weak or rapid pulse
• Muscle cramps
• Hypotension (low blood pressure)
• Nausea
• Headaches

When to get medical help

Some measures can help you manage heat exhaustion as it happens, including getting out of the heat, drinking more fluids (water or fluids with electrolytes), spraying yourself with water, and using sun protection. 

But if you notice these symptoms, get help as soon as possible: 

• Pale, moist skin
• Muscle cramps
• A fever over 100.4 F (34 C)
• Nausea
• Vomiting
• Diarrhea
• Headaches
• Fatigue
• Weakness
• Anxiety
• Fainting
• Dizziness

These indicate a loss of fluids faster than you can recover easily, which means you may need intravenous fluids and other treatments to manage the condition before it worsens.

Watch out for heat exhaustion this season, and if you show signs of it or other heat illnesses, contact us at Houston Medical ER as soon as possible.