Is your body temperature system behaving erratically and troubling you with nausea, cramps, exhaustion and fainting? Careful you may be suffering from the dreaded heatstroke!!
This is a serious medical emergency and a grave form of heat injury that the body is taken by. Get help right away if someone has suffered from a heat stroke as it can cause a brutal damage to the internal organs, and the brain. Generally heat stroke ends up as the woe of the elderly and the athletes who spend hours training in the sun. Let us list a few symptoms of this condition:
High temperature with fainting spells
The normal temperature control system of the human body undergoes breakdown when it faces a long stretched exposure to very high temperatures and dehydration. This sometimes results in a temperature touching 105 degree Fahrenheit and causes an erratic behavior of the central nervous system. The patient suffers from delirium, seizures, disorientation, nausea, or loss of consciousness. The fainting spell accompanied by extremely high temperature maybe the first sign of a heat stroke.
The skin is dry and hot when touched when the heat stroke is caused by the hot weather and when its caused by a bout of strenuous exercise, the skin is wet and moist. Attacked by rapid shallow breathing, the patient may complain of stomach sickness and vomit. As the temperature of the body rises the skin becomes red. There is a lot of pressure that is exerted on the heart as the body desperately tries to cool your body and so the patient may feel a significant increase in the pulse rate.
Delirium or hallucinations
The high temperature often leads to a severe throbbing headache and the patient may feel disoriented and disconnected. He/she has difficulty in understanding or speaking and may even hallucinate. In complicated cases seizures may also be seen in the person who is suffering from heat stroke.
Weakness or muscle cramps
In the beginning the muscles may give a cramped and tender feeling but as time passes they become either limp or stiff.
Heat cramps
Generally the first sign to be noted are the heat cramps. They result as an initial exposure to strenuous exertion or very high temperatures. The person starts to sweat profusely, feel thirsty, gets cramps in the stomach leg and arm muscles. The heat cramps and the body condition can be stabilized just swallow an electrolyte laden drink and take rest in a shaded area.
Don’t stay in the sun or exercise aggressively especially if you feel the beginning of a headache, lightheadedness, dizziness, nausea, muscle cramps or a moist skin. Make sure you don’t take alcoholic beverages, they dehydrate the body further.
