Take Care of Yourself

While the heat wave here in Vancouver seems to be over, the cause of Eddy "Anarchy" Kolasinski's death has only just come to light; Heatstroke. I didn't think that this was something that killed people in good health in their early 30s. In doing some research, I'm a bit surprised about how easy it could be to overlook the symptoms.

Simple heat exhaustion can arise from your average active day out in the sun and leave you with symptoms such as headache, dizziness, nausea and vomiting, cramps, and tiredness. None of those symptoms would be terribly suspicious if you'd had a couple beers and a mayonnaise laden sandwich at the beach. You might think that you had food poisoning, or were just tired from your activities.

With heat exhaustion you should be able to drink cold liquids to rehydrate, have a cold shower, and be able to bring your body temperature down. Untreated, heatstroke may develop, and that requires medical attention; don't expect that you can 'sleep off' heatstroke in a hot apartment. You might not wake up.

If you or your friends have been celebrating the heat wave with cold malt beverages and one of you has become quite the lightweight, there may be cause for concern. The dehydration from alcohol only compounds the problem of heat exhaustion, and the expected effects of alcohol can mask the real dangers.

One of the body's most important methods of temperature regulation is perspiration. Evaporation of water is endothermic; therefore, perspiration is an efficient way to rid the body of excess heat. When the body becomes sufficiently dehydrated to prevent the production of sweat, this avenue of heat reduction is closed. When the body is no longer capable of sweating, core temperature begins to rise swiftly. -- Wikipedia