Summer Moving: Treating the Heat

This month on the Albuquerque Self Storage blog we have been tackling the summer move topics you need to know before it gets too dang hot! Last time we talked about how to prevent heatstroke in your workforce (read: family and friends) when they are helping you move. But what if you hadn’t read those useful tips? Now your cousin is laid out in the living room throwing up and your friend is acting all weird. Well, let’s waste no more time. If they have heatstroke, you should get them medical attention STAT! It is a medical emergency! If it is heat exhaustion or a lesser illness, or while you’re waiting for the professionals to arrive, you can take these steps:

• Get in the shade or air conditioning
  • Lower your body temperature by moving out of the sunlight and out of the high temps.
• Rehydrate
  • Drink fluids! Your body has no doubt lost a lot of salt through sweating so you need to replenish your water and salts. Avoid very cold, alcoholic, or sugary drinks as you attempt to rehydrate. Those can all mess with your body’s attempts at controlling the temperature.
• Cool shower or bath
  • The goal is to lower your body temp and submersing yourself into cool waters can do the trick. In the future if you find yourself outdoors and way from shelter a cool pond, stream or other body of water can help.
• Apply Ice Packs
  • Applying ice packs to the armpits, neck, back, and groin. These areas are rich with blood vessels that are close to the surface. Cooling these can reduce body temperature.

Remember, heat stroke is a medical emergency and should be met with immediate medical attention. These treatments are for lesser heat illnesses like exhaustion, or to be first aid rendered while waiting for help to arrive. Delaying in getting treatment for those with heat stroke can be dangerous.

Symptoms of heatstroke include (but are not limited to):

• High temperature
• Altered or strange behavior
• Vomiting and nausea
• Flush skin
• Increased heart rate
• Headache