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| Experts warn of dehydration, heat stroke |
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Thursday, June 26, 2008
Myra Imran
Islamabad
With the heat and humidity continuing, health experts have advised strict measures to avoid dehydration and prevent heat strokes.
In hot weather, less consumption of water, excessive sweating, exposure to humidity, direct contact with scorching sun and use of medicines such as diuretics can lead to dehydration, doctors told ‘The News’.
“Our bodies require a certain amount of fluid intake on a daily basis to function,” said Dr. Nauman Niaz, consultant physician at the Oil and Gas Development Company Limited (OGDCL).
“The minimum is about equal to four eight-ounce glasses that is one litre or one quart,” he said and added that requirements vary with activity and age but most active persons need two to three times more than the basic quantity.
Dr. Haider Baqai, assistant professor of medicine at the Rawalpindi General Hospital (RGH), said that basic fluid intake served to replace the fluids that were required to perform normal body functions. “If we take in less or lose more fluids than needed the end result is dehydration,” he explained.
Conditions such as diarrhoea, vomiting, fistula of the intestine and body burns are the main causes of dehydration, the health experts said.
“Dehydration can be defined as excessive loss of water from the body and diseases of the gastro intestinal tract can lead to dehydration in various ways,” Dr. Niaz pointed out. “Often it becomes a major problem in an otherwise self-limited illness and fluid loss may even be severe enough to become life threatening,” he warned.
Doctors say that a person is dehydrated if there is a rapid drop in weight; this loss may equal several pounds in a few days or at times hours. A rapid drop of over 10 percent that is 15 pounds in a person weighing 150 pounds is considered severe.
The symptoms could include increasing thirst, dry mouth, weakness or light-headedness particularly if worsening on standing, darkening of the urine or a decrease in urination. The doctors warn that if not looked after or treated severe dehydration could lead to changes in the body’s chemistry, electrolyte imbalance, acute kidney failure or strokes.
In children dehydration is quite common with excessive loose stools due to dietary indiscretion or viruses such as rota virus. The upper parts of the eyes become sunken and the skin becomes turgid, they say.
Dr. Niaz said that dehydration was also the main cause of heat strokes that are a form of abnormally raised body temperature with accompanied physical and neurological symptoms. “Unlike heat cramps and heat exhaustion, two less severe forms of elevated body temperature, heat stroke is a true medical emergency that can be fatal,” he said.
He explained that since the skin works as an air conditioner, due to heat stroke it stops to function. There is a lot of heat generated in the body that leads to very high fever up to 106 degrees Fahrenheit — absence of sweating with hot red or flushed dry skin, rapid pulse, difficult breathing, changed behaviour, hallucinations, confusion, agitation, disorientation, fits and coma.
The doctors advise that in case of a heat stroke the first and foremost step is to cool the victim and get him to a shady area. The person’s clothing should be removed and cool or tepid water be applied to the skin. Other steps were to fan the victim to promote sweating and evaporation; place ice packs under his armpits and groins; monitor body temperature with thermometer and continue cooling efforts until the body temperature drops to 101 or 102 degrees Fahrenheit besides calling for an emergency service.
He said that labourers who toil all day under the burning sun were particularly prone to suffer heat strokes for they do not take in enough salt and water and become easy victims. Besides children should only be allowed to play during early evening. “Losing a person to dehydration is a complete waste of life,” Dr. Niaz said.
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ISSN 1563-9479 
