Episode 131: Heat Stress

spk_0:   0:02
It's hot. It is. It's about 100 degrees outside. It's hot.

spk_1:   0:08
It does that in the Midwest.

spk_0:   0:10
And we just ate. We just ate supper. We ate at a Chinese restaurant. American Chinese. Unfortunately, don't have any actual Chinese Chinese. We have American Chinese, and I saw you doing something you don't normally do. It's an unusual situation for you.

spk_1:   0:27
You know, it's summer when I start sprinkling salt on my food

spk_0:   0:31
when you d'oh you. She's not a sodium sprinkler. She doesn't like the taste of it. I like the taste of salt. I'm assault fanatic. I have to watch myself. I get high blood pressure if I eat a lot of salt with a whole bunch of those tanks. Yes, there are. Okay, well,

spk_1:   0:53
now we know.

spk_0:   0:54
Know we know. Sorry. We're looking for watering tanks for the back of our pickup truck because we

spk_1:   1:01
had after water the back of our pick up trucks frequently.

spk_0:   1:04
Yeah, actually, because we actually we have a watering tank in the back. Ready? We're in a little bit of a drought. We're trying to keep things alive, and so we're prepping for in case it gets worse. And besides, we can use the infrastructure of water collection Stop. So what does all this mean? It means it's hot, It's darn hot, and she's eating assault. Which means let's talk a little bit about cheating, overheating heat stress. I don't We've talked about this before, but we're gonna talk about it again because it could be very dangerous. We're gonna take a fresh perspective on it. A 1919 18 2018 perspective on keeping cool when it's hot and not just keeping cool, but how not to get yourself Heat, stroke and heat stress. So

spk_1:   1:56
I went out for Ah bike ride this morning. Have about, you know, 30 miles or so and sweat it out about 20 ounces worth of water. Probably. That's about how much I drank in. And every time you lose water for sweat cool, you assault with it, so you start depleting yourself. Assault. If you just replace the water and don't replace the sold under most circumstances, most Americans get way more salt than they need on their diet a

spk_0:   2:25
way way more so I know I d'oh

spk_1:   2:29
and uneven under the conditions of sweating a lot. I'm bidding that most Americans still get plenty of salt to replace that. But I have a relatively low salt diet,

spk_0:   2:44
a lot of foods and a lot of foods that are like fresh vegetables that you don't have any salt on it. So

spk_1:   2:51
I'm not a raw foodists. Guys, I think that's goofy.

spk_0:   2:54
But she's a lot of apples and oranges,

spk_1:   2:57
fruit and the salads and things like that.

spk_0:   3:00
Actually, that's not Raj has been heated, you know?

spk_1:   3:03
Yeah, stuff in the summer.

spk_0:   3:05
Still no salt on it. So,

spk_1:   3:08
yeah, I don't put a lot of salt, my sauces and stuff.

spk_0:   3:11
But most for most people, salt is not a big deal. I know. They used to give a sea salt tablets. We were in school. We got really hot. They give a salt tablets.

spk_1:   3:20
Yeah,

spk_0:   3:20
Venus French fries. And, Oh, speaking of French fries of those words,

spk_1:   3:27
I think we will be the aside

spk_0:   3:29
aside for today. We were We were in a coma yesterday. I told you that we stopped of all things. I took her to White Castle. You're

spk_1:   3:43
a fine. He could make me.

spk_0:   3:44
I was kind of one of those deals where she hadn't eaten and I wanted t I just wanted to see our, but I could make Okay. We don't eat meat at restaurants. We just don't, You know, we're not. You will not see us sitting down and eating a burger, you know, unless we unless we know exactly where that came from. We're not eating it. And how it was processed

spk_1:   4:05
that would get from hundreds of cows. And yeah,

spk_0:   4:08
that's that's not what they do. Have credit where credit is due. They do have vegetarian sliders. You're gonna have to tell me what? It's still clear. Still clear Where? The most dangerous intersection in the stables. Not even kidding. There's somebody killed here last week. Um, anyway, so they had vegetarian sliders. David Cook about a separate grill. So I took her in there and I got her three vegetarian sliders and I got three sliders myself. Vegetarian, and this is just our aside. And I ordered on order of French fries it Let's just say while the sliders are edible, the vegetarian sliders, they're very little like meat. Actually, they're just vegetable Patties. The french fries were the single most disgusting. A set of french fries, I can recall. I picked two french fries out of the bag and I'm driving. I admit I eat when I'm driving. Sometimes I pulled him out of the bag and they were just They just a little bit over whip.

spk_1:   5:16
The bottom of the fry was pointing at that he was holding was pointing at the ground, and so was the top of the fries. You

spk_0:   5:23
and then I could feel something running

spk_1:   5:25
down my finger.

spk_0:   5:26
It was the grease.

spk_1:   5:29
Yeah.

spk_0:   5:29
So, yeah, those were Yeah, not a big fee. And I I love french fries. Think of salty foods and I shouldn't eat my child. I love french fries, but I'm here to tell you them things was e and reveal. I think I ate five or six of them. She ate, too. And that was enough for her. Then we pitch the rest sometimes. You know what? We have extra food. Well, stop out by the side of the road. It dumped the food out for the critters out there. Not this stuff. Way like critters. Better than to give this kind of okay into. Besides those air solely food. Let's talk about heat related stuff, You know? I know a person a good friend of mine actually died from over exertion shoveling snow. It wasn't heat related stuff, but people die of overexertion in the heat, too, and it hits you pretty quick. So we're just gonna run over the signs of heat exhaustion and heat. Yeah,

spk_1:   6:30
if somebody's turning red and they're sweating profusely and they're feeling weak, maybe they get a little dizzy when they stand up. Suddenly they're, ah, heart rates faster than it should be. It feels like their hearts racing in their chest. That's what we call heat exhaustion. And it is not an immediate life threatening emergency right yet, but it's fixing to be.

spk_0:   6:59
I had this happen to me three or four years ago when it whatever it was we had just bought the place. Yeah, and we were hustling to get seed down along the damage than all the areas that we had scooped out around upon.

spk_1:   7:15
And then straw mulch over him said

spk_0:   7:17
it was August day, and it was.

spk_1:   7:20
It was like 109 that

spk_0:   7:22
day down there where the plant is, there's no breeze, but the sure is a lot of sunshine. Yeah, I was doing the back side of the dam and I got almost all of it done. But I was just I basically it was kind of walking on the slope. I took a step and I just kind of went loop on. Felt out. I got so dizzy, I fell down. And I'm like, Okay, this ain't right. Yep. So I want time for

spk_1:   7:51
salty to move to the air condition truck.

spk_0:   7:54
Well, for

spk_1:   7:54
like, a cold drink

spk_0:   7:55
at the first part, I just went over and sat down on what we call Cedars Rock, because there's this big, huge rocket was an erratic That was in the damn area that he pushed aside.

spk_1:   8:05
This is Zach. Out the name Cedar's

spk_0:   8:07
right. So I got the name Cedars running my butt down in the shade of Cedars Rock and sat there for a few minutes and I went up. I got in this here truck and turn the air conditioner on full blast and cooled off. Yeah, got to me. She didn't overheat. My gosh, if I could find that picture.

spk_1:   8:28
Yeah, I look like a monster.

spk_0:   8:31
I was sitting. I looked the same way. I mean, I looked exactly the same way because not only are receding but we're putting out straws and strong word is covered in dirt and sweat and strong, you know? And yeah, you know what? One of things I could have done and one of things that I thought if there were any way life threatening, I could have jumped in the pond. That would have cooled me off pretty quickly. Uh, but at the time, this pot was fairly fresh and it was very muddy. That is not what it would have been a mud fast,

spk_1:   9:10
but he would have had pond water on him. Nonetheless, if he had stopped sweating

spk_0:   9:17
right, I'd have gone and I had to go on in the pond if I stop sweating because that's when you start to really get in trouble,

spk_1:   9:25
you stop sweating because you're basically running out of water. And when you run out of water to sweat out, your core is overheating and overheating. The core is actually the really dangerous parts. And the low blood pressure is another really dangerous part from the loss of body water. So heat exhaustion, you're running low on water. You're still sweating a lot because you're trying to cool yourself, but you can feel it's not working well enough, and the flush of your skin is because you're dilating the blood vessels near your skin to try and get rid of as much heat as possible, which is not terribly helpful when that's 109 degrees US head. But you know you're trying, so those air signs that you're starting over heater core and you need to take serious and immediate steps to quit overheating your core and let your body temperature come down. Because if you don't take care of that situation and you go into actual heat stroke, when the person stop sweating that is a life threatening emergency, you can die a heat stroke. The other problem. People occasionally get into our dehydration problems and lack of salt problems. Dehydration? Yeah, everybody knows you're supposed to drink a lot when you're outside in the heat, but a lot of people actually don't do it all that well. It's possible I am the water bottle police every now and then when we're on a bike ride

spk_0:   10:58
right and frankly, another part of it is even if you do really, really, really, really drink, drink, drink, drink. There's only so much water your body can't process.

spk_1:   11:07
You can absorb about a leader an hour from the gut. So if you're sweating out more than a leader an hour, which is certainly possible under hot and humid conditions, especially when you're working, you're gonna go into a net negative water balance. No, how you respond to this depends somewhat on how heat adapted you are, because if you've been spending most of your time in air conditioning and have not been working out in the heat, you are not, he'd adapted. You won't sweat enough to help cool you effectively. You'll put extra salt into the sweat compared to somebody who is heat adapted. So you assault please yourself more quickly, and you also won't have much body water to spare. You'll have the right amount of body water to start with. So as soon as you get any significant loss of body water, you start suffering from degradation of ability when one regularly works out in some heat and keeps it restrained enough not to take themselves out of their ability to cope. Then, as they do that, their sweat glands learn to make the sweat and then steal some of the salt back so you don't make as salty of sweat. They'll start sweating earlier when they at the smaller signs of overheating, and they actually produce more sweat. But it's amore dilutes what? They cool themselves more effectively. They don't lose as much salt, and they carry extra blood volume. It's called the hyper bulimia of the athlete. They'll carry some extra blood volume. Eso okay, The first half pint they sweat out. They don't even miss because they were 1/2 pint hi to start with. So they've got an extra cushion there of water loss before they start dehydrating. So if you know you're gonna have to be working out in the heat, you gotta start slow and work yourself up to it for greatest safety. Which is exactly why I was able to finish laying down the straw. It's not that I'm super woman. It is that been out looking regularly.

spk_0:   13:19
I work a day job. I work in the work in the office. She had been out, she'd been off all month and she works, rides bicycle at night. You know, all this kind of stuff, and I do, too. But not as nearly as much as she does,

spk_1:   13:33
he's out. Maura, toothy in the evening,

spk_0:   13:36
right? And I'm not out during the middle of David from working green.

spk_1:   13:41
I I would contend that I was working, too, But working in the garden, Yes, but that's not the way

spk_0:   13:46
I work in a dragnet office.

spk_1:   13:49
I was out in the sunshine and had a chance to be better heated happen.

spk_0:   13:54
Another thing to Jeff going is there's a bit of a stigma tip to, you know, complaining or not complaining with saying the truth about how you're feeling when you're feeling like this. And that's why a lot of the people who actually get he struck are not the lazy people that the go getters, because they won't stop slow, don't

spk_1:   14:16
want to admit even to cells. They're not coping well enough.

spk_0:   14:19
The friend of mine who died from again. It wasn't exactly the same thing, but it was over exertion. Troubling Snow was a go getter. He was the kind of guy who, if you ain't working, you ain't doing it. You're not. What's the work point of living If you aren't working, working hard, working hard? Well, he will be worked hard until his heart gave out and he fell over dead. Had he been doing it the lazy man's way, he'd still be here today, most likely

spk_1:   14:44
or listening to his body and to a reasonable degree

spk_0:   14:48
because he had been not feeling well for a couple weeks. But he just pushed on past it because a man doesn't just cause you're not feeling well doesn't mean you're not gonna work Well, you know, sometimes you need to stop it. Listen to what your body is telling you.

spk_1:   15:03
Sometimes it's telling you it's hot and I'm uncomfortable and sweaty and sticky. And sometimes it's telling you I've got palpitations. I am getting dizzy. When I move. I feel an unnatural heat right at the surface of my skin because I'm so flushed and people say I look really red. So there's a difference between discomfort and danger signs, but you need to know the difference. And when they're danger signs, you absolutely need to pay attention to him.

spk_0:   15:33
Okay, well, what do you do about this? There's several things you can do about this. It depends on the severity of of what's going on, but the first thing you really need to do is you need to stop and find a way to cool down. You need to elevate your feet if you can. You need to, uh, get in cool air of you can't get in cool air getting cool water. In fact, if you're really, really, really hot, there's no faster way of cooling down

spk_1:   16:03
the water.

spk_0:   16:04
Water is is so much more, um, so much more

spk_1:   16:12
able to remove heat on the surface of the skin. It conducts heat from the skin to the water 25 times faster than you conduct heat from air from skin to air,

spk_0:   16:23
you say? Well, yeah, but the water is hot. The water is not that hot problem.

spk_1:   16:27
If the water is below what your core temperature should be, which is about 98 Fahrenheit,

spk_0:   16:32
almost all water is

spk_1:   16:33
then it's going to cool. You people die of hypothermia in 87 degree water if they're in it long enough because water steals heat from your body so effectively.

spk_0:   16:45
And if you don't believe this become a scuba diver who will find out how

spk_1:   16:49
you asked, You will discover how oh, that Hawaiian beach water that felt so nice when you when you went in for a quick swim. You're in there for an hour long dive and you're shivering if you don't have a heavy enough wet suit

spk_0:   17:03
and we're not even joking we're talking about right off the counter coast. You'll be chipper.

spk_1:   17:07
So is laying in. The header is effective. Yeah, laying towels over somebody and then wedding down the towels is effective, especially if they're light tells, so they'll conduct Thea. You get the evaporation cooling from them, even when they can't sweat themselves. Those ah, cooling towels they sell are meant to be quick, Evaporation tells, and they cool the skin better than normal cloth. Does those air a really effective prepper kind of option?

spk_0:   17:35
Obviously, getting into the shade is key. Yes, um, but that was my You know, if I have felt any worse, I was going to the pond because that's where I mean, I knew that will mean especially a planet like ours. Our pond is where it's a very steep, deep pond for the size of it, you know, it's 1/3 of an acre or so more or less. It's not a very big pond, but it's 1920 feet deep and so you don't have to get very many highly stratified really cool

spk_1:   18:08
when you swim in the pond. If you're swimming right on the surface, all of your body is in the warm water. But as soon as you Ah, stop and start treading water so your feet go more than three feet down, your feet are in the cool, so that is an option. If you are trying to cool somebody, drawing water from the bottom can be more effective than drawing from the top of a relatively still surface responds

spk_0:   18:35
and even even a much bigger lake. It does not take the Thermo Clines. Thorough cleansing lakes are weird if you've never seen a thermal Klein. Yes, I said, seen the color the stratification of the water because you can literally see it in the lake.

spk_1:   18:53
There's a density difference, so much so that it looks like the barrier between the vinegar layer and the oil layer in some salad dressing that's been sitting there for a while. If you just sloshing a little bit and you see that barrier shift around, that's what a thermal Klein looks like when you're in the water and

spk_0:   19:10
lots of time there'll be some vegetable decay like tree used stuff. Leave

spk_1:   19:15
that different sandwiched in density between the layers,

spk_0:   19:19
and so they're literally be, ah, layer off Fred in the water between the two layers.

spk_1:   19:27
Yeah, relatively clear water. Ah, a couple of millimeters thick worth layer of organic debris and then the cooler layer on the

spk_0:   19:37
bottom. It's really weird.

spk_1:   19:38
It is its chemical

spk_0:   19:39
kind of cool,

spk_1:   19:40
huh? Really, But

spk_0:   19:43
most in most like lakes and Cory's. You see him. You know, usually you'll have, ah, the top layer, which would be 68 feet. And then you'll have a small klein of, Oh, another 68 feet and they get 15 to 20 feet down. You'll hit the cold.

spk_1:   19:58
Since cold water is so protective. One thing you can do if you know you're gonna be working outside, won't have access to coolers. Won't have access to air conditioning. That kind of stuff. You can take sealed containers of the beverages of your choice time. Good and tight toss. Attach them to a rope attachment, throw him into the deep part of the water so they fall down below the thermal. Klein. Let him sit there for a while. And then you haul amount. You've got chilled drinks effectively.

spk_0:   20:29
That's how they used to do it back in the days of sale. They used to put, you know, when you're out of the out the ocean. They used to drop a drop, a case of wine or whatever. They wanted to drink a beer. They drop a case on a 60,000 line in decades. It down below the main thermic line where it gets cold, gets into the fifties, bring it up, elected not ice cold beer, but pretty cold. So, yeah,

spk_1:   21:00
a related thing is, it happens to me a lot, especially as I've gotten a little older and gotten not quite as good as conserving my salt. When I sweat, I'll finish working outside or writing going for a long bike ride. And I'll have this a gritty film of of salt on my surface that make means there's a very high likelihood I'll start cramping at night when I start to fall asleep in blood flow to my muscles changes. I'll be salt depleted enough that will start triggering. Cramps

spk_0:   21:31
should come in from a bike ride. It will be salty and salty. Yeah, she sees that later. She knows she's gonna. And the cramp, sir. In Just don't just you move your foot just a little

spk_1:   21:44
in turn

spk_0:   21:45
triggers that cramp and wound Nelly. That hurts.

spk_1:   21:49
He's used to watching the eyes pop out of my head when my eyes have popped out. Yeah,

spk_0:   21:54
you're not the only person that that happened. Yeah, you create worse tonight.

spk_1:   21:58
I do.

spk_0:   21:59
But she she is Ah, usually salty person when inter sweat. Yeah, she is saltier than just about anybody I know. She takes off her baseball captain got soaked?

spk_1:   22:11
Yes, Rose on it. Now it's not pretty. Not pretty, but the cramps are assigned to. And if you do start cramping, you want to rehydrate some people, like the fluid replacement, the electrolyte replacement drinks, sports drinks kind of things. Yeah, lukewarm on those. But what I will say is, yeah, they have some low calorie versions. Yeah, but you still gotta pay attention, because when you're sweating, the diet of most people is much richer in sodium and potassium. Potassium. You get mostly through fruits and vegetables. Sodium is the commonly used preservative and flavoring. The average American diet has tons of sodium and not much potassium, relatively so. When you sweat, you're losing mostly sodium but some potassium. Most people can replace sodium from their diet easier than they can replace the potassium. So it's the potassium loss that actually bites him first. Causes muscle weakness, causes our team doctor for one of my sports teams will have the athletes try and exert force against him, and they'll feel for a little kind of quiver in the muscle as it's trying to exert force. And he uses that as a gauge to how many potassium gluconate tablets he's gonna feed. And he feeds those pretty generously. He does not feed sodium tablets at all. He just feeds the potassium gluconate tablets. And this is a guy who regularly treats people for events like 72. Our races ultramarathon, ultramarathon will beyond Iron Man distances. I could tell you more

spk_0:   24:05
about it. He'll want to give away who the guy is, but he's a very interesting guy, very, very fascinating guy. And if anybody knows how to treat heat related

spk_1:   24:17
people who have been salt exerting in the heat, you know, is the guy, so that's what he does. He feeds us potassium gluconate. I myself, I'm not a doctor. But here I am reporting what he does. Yeah, Yeah. He doesn't feed salt tablets at all, but I s o if you are going to go the electrolyte replacement drink route, take a look at the labels. Some of them are mostly sodium, and some of them have a pretty good potassium content. I think

spk_0:   24:48
we actually did a podcast on this that I have never published yet.

spk_1:   24:52
Oh, wait. I knew it was familiar, but

spk_0:   24:54
we might give him a twofer. Give him a twofer. Um,

spk_1:   24:59
it was on another hot day last

spk_0:   25:01
year. Living day. Um, we might do a two for us, because Yeah, that's Ah, there's no cash. We haven't. We never did. I've got I gotta be honest with you, my good friends. We've got about 25 episodes that we have yet to release and several of them from last winter that we're gonna hold over till next winter because they're really winter. Things

spk_1:   25:25
were on vacation and in the car a lot and recording a lot, but not able to process and loaded.

spk_0:   25:31
Yeah, and I don't like to do more than one a day So

spk_1:   25:34
we're not trying to bomb you, so

spk_0:   25:38
we will go. We're not. We're not. We're North Korea will drop a bomb on. You know, we don't

spk_1:   25:44
care, but we won't do it. Using 1948 bombers like North Korea

spk_0:   25:48
has sitting on their runways. Yeah, I got it. I'm I'm airplane guy. I love airplanes. Second digression. I love airplanes. And I was looking at I was doing some research and study on the Chosin Reservoir. The Marine, um, attack away from the Chosin Reservoir. We attacked and

spk_1:   26:11
attacking the homeward direction.

spk_0:   26:14
Greens don't retreat to just attack in a pick a new avenue of attack. So as we're doing that, we have built A We're building an airfield, er, air support field at Chosin Reservoir, basically updating it, one that the Japanese had built during World War two. I was curious if that thing was still there, so I started looking at it and I went out with Google satellites, and I know a lot of a lot of airplanes from the Cold War era on up and I looked satellites. Now, what in the world are those things that North Korea has sitting on that airport What are those things? And it turns out that there post World War Two vintage first generation Soviet jet bombers that the Soviets phased out in the seventies. And that's what it is. That's the North Korean air forces. Mean bombing force are those. I mean, I couldn't even call it antiques anymore. I mean, so I just thought that was interesting. I didn't even recognize why. Once I found out that there were beagles, I was like, OK, yeah, but those were still in service. I thought they were the last of them gone during the Vietnam era. But anyway, that's my digressions. So we're gonna wrap this up. Thank you for listening.

spk_1:   27:43
Stay cool.

spk_0:   27:44
Stay cool.