[YEA]  08/08/2007: Elisa from Tuscaloosa, Alabama: "A week ago, I was working outside, got too hot, had all the signs of a heat stroke and apparently some sort of poisoning - food or other - inhalation or absorbtion - and have been violently ill ever since. For a week, I have not even kept water down - going at both ends several times a day - lost more than 7 lbs in a week. About 2 days ago I found this website and had my husband buy some Apple Cider Vinegar - it sat on the counter for a day until I could get up enough courage to even sip it - since every thing I swallow comes back up violently. Plus I didn't know if I could take it when I had eaten something or when to take it - then I read several more of these stories and decided I could at least get 2 tablespoons down. And I did - and don't do as I did and put it off. It is no big deal - one tablespoon at a time is squat. I began to feel better about 30-45 minutes later. Now it's been a couple of hours and I feel better than I have in a week - I couldn't even hardly hold my head up - I literally slept 20 hours out of every day - Whatever you do, don't wait, get the Apple Cider Vinegar down - I was shocked - but it stayed down for me. I'm getting ready to eat - and really really looking forward to it!"

[YEA]  02/20/2012: Simon from Bath, England: "I have struggled with the mid-August heat for the past 3 years. In 2009 it was at its height when I was working in the garden in the morning trimming a tree, not wearing a hat because I thought that the morning heat couldn't possibly be dangerous (Norfolk, UK is not generally known for scorching temperatures, but is well known for being the driest region of Britain). I felt very physically and mentally tired after working for only about an hour. I went inside and had plenty to drink, but within another hour or so I was sitting in the living room with a blanket around me and with a headache. The headache became worse, and the feverish conditions I was experiencing became more emphasised. I struggled on for the next week or so, with conditions escalating more into me having an abscessed tooth and thus only being able to eat liquids. I was bed-ridden for about a week, and did not regain full health for about 2 weeks.

The same thing happened the following summer, at around the same time in August. This time, though, I was prepared for it. I stopped what I was doing at the time when I felt the symptoms coming on, and wrapped up straight away. I made myself plenty of hot drinks, and felt the need to eat lots of high-carb foods (potatoes were amazing). The symptoms did not escalate this time, and I felt myself become better within a few hours.

Last summer (2011) I had it come on again a little, and just made sure that I kept myself warm and full of food. Again, the symptoms disappeared fairly quickly.

It is important to note also that for the past two years in the summer I have been wearing a hat pretty much every day. I also wear sun glasses to protect my eyes against the glare. I don't like wearing sun tan lotion, so I just make sure I cover my neck because that's the only area that normally burns when I'm dressed."

[QUESTION]  09/05/2010: Joyce from Rogers, Ar: "Heat stroke and Hypothermia

We live a very healthy lifestyle. My son who was VERY healthy suprisingly got heat stroke, even though he had electrolytes and lots of water. He has been in recovery for three months. He is still weak and cannot take the heat outside and his body temperature will not raise back up to 98.6 where it used to be. It stays at 97 now, sometimes it drops even lower. Any thoughts on natural ways to help the body return to its normal temperature?"

09/06/2010: Tom from Regina, Sk replies: "Is he SWEATING normally in hot sun now, or was he before he got the heatstroke?

Heatstroke's basic cause is an elevated and then potentially deadly runaway rise in body temperature from insufficient cooling from lack of sweat production and evaporation.

http://cypress.he.net/~bigmacnc/drflechas/iodine.htm

20% of all iodine in the human body is stored in the skin, specifically in the sweat glands. Lack of iodine in the sweat glands manifests as dry skin with a decreased ability to sweat. Iodine can also be concentrated in the stomach tissue, and the lack of iodine in the stomach manifests as achlorhydria (lack of digestive acid production). Iodine is used by the stomach cells, also known as parietal cells, to concentrate chloride which is necessary to produce hydrochloric acid (digestive acid). With the prolonged presence of achlorhydria, there is a much higher incidence of stomach cancer. Iodine is concentrated in the lacrymal glands of the eye, and a lack of iodine can cause dry eyes. Iodine can also be concentrated in the parotid and submandibular glands of the mouth, and iodine deficiency here can result in dry mouth. Iodine can be concentrated in the ovaries, and Russian studies done some years ago showed a relationship between iodine deficiency and the presence of cysts in the ovaries. The greater the iodine deficiency, the more ovarian cysts a woman produces. In its extreme form, this condition is known as polycystic ovarian disease. Very suspiciously, his current symptom, hypothermia, has as a main cause hypothyroidism, which can be from lack of adequate iodine stores in the body! Also, as a formerly active outdoor person as you say, it sounds like he was taking lots of fluids to prevent dehydration, but what kind of fluids?
Was it lots of soda pop, especially those known well to be loaded with bromides which push out the Iodine very well?

Here is a note from Dr. Fletchas:

Bromide. Bromide builds up in the Central Nervous System and results in many problems. In the 1920s BromoSeltzer
Was a bromide based medicine that used to be used for hangovers, calming the stomach, and headaches. It often resulted in acute paranoid psychosis with large doses. Today, beverages (Mountain Dew, Fresca, and citric Gatorade) contain bromide in the form of "brominated vegetable oil". It is used as an emulsifier in citrus flavored soft drinks. The bromide functions as a CNS depressant and triggers a number of symptoms like paranoia. Bromide is also found in flour and bread. Brazil recently outlawed bromide in flour products.

If you think this is correct, then see 'Iodine' under the Remedies Tab for an Iodine supplement protocol here:

http://www.earthclinic.com/Remedies/iodine.html"

09/30/2010: Joyce from Lowell, Ar replies: "Thank you for your input. I had considered the iodine issue but you have added some information I did not know. His diet is excellent. I have practiced good nutrition in the home for over 20 years. No premade food, some organic meat, nuts beans and lots of living vegetables. Always Water... NO POP.. When outside in heat we also try to keep a good electrolyte source in the water. We are not sure what caused the heat stroke. He drinks great. One nutritionists said he believed the root cause was vit D3 deficience??? so we got him on that too. It is more clear from your post that iodine could really have been the issue. I will ask him whether he is sweating normal yet, and I will re-continue iodine supplementation. He was waking up in the morning with his temp as low as 95! Now his waking temp is more like 96. Better, but not good. Thank you for any insight."

10/03/2010: Tom from Regina, Sk replies: "Hello, Joyce, good of you to reply to give some feedback! After some detailed reading of several sites, this MD Dr. Lam has a superb site layout of information on the entire spectrum of adrenal fatigue to exhaustion to how it is still most often misdiagnosed as hypothyroidism today.

http://www.drlam.com/index.asp

There are good timechart curves drawn under several links showing the time progression from stress to fatigue to exhaustion if there's no remediation or intercession. The iodine now added may be acting as a boost to the thyroid function, in a way similar to how added thyroid hormone or extract acts, but if the problem is actually an initial manifestation of ADRENAL gland stress, then he'd have the symptoms he's having, with temperature sluggish to respond. In general, the initial shock (infection or severe stress?) Will lead to cortisol output increasing , which could manifest as normal-high BP and higher than normal blood sugar.

But as the adrenals exhaust their output capacity, the body tends toward LOW BP AND blood sugar symptoms, even though lab results may read normal! http://www.drlam.com/articles/Adrenal_fatigue_and_hypoglycemia.asp

This last page link especially gives a symptom chart, and explains how/why the problem must be determined first and foremost as an adrenal axis imbalance before pursuing any thyroid treatment. The low temperature symptom is a key one.

Hope this helps you out! http://www.drlam.com/articles/adrenalfatiguevshypothyroidism.asp"

07/28/2006: Ted from Bangkok, Thailand: "This is a very old remedy of mine, hardly a home remedy.

Research studies have been done on decades ago what is needed to prevent heat exhaustion and/or heat stroke. It turns that people susceptible to this were found to be deficient in magnesium, vitamin C, and of course water with some appropriate electrolyte salts to prevent dehydration.

I once had a friend who was extremely heat exhausted, and as a trial I gave her magnesium and vitamin C. Over the course of a week in 100 Degree Fahrenheit heat, she could stand the heat much better than me since I didn't take the supplements! The usual dosage for magnesium is 250 mg of magnesium chloride or similarly magnesium citrate, but never magnesium oxide or magnesium carbonate.

For vitamin C, it is necessary to take about 1000 mg per day minimum. It is important that in hot weather you will loose a lot of valuable salts from your body. So if you do not have an electrolyte salts or sports drink (one bottle/day will do), you have to add about 100 mg of potassium citrate or potassium chloride to your drinking water, besides just the usual 1/4 teaspoon per liter of water of sea salt.

A couple of years back, a health conscious Sports television broadcaster died while playing a simple game of tennis. The diagnosis was a somewhat vague "heat exhaustion". However, there was more to it then that. People also loose valuable minerals besides salts from the sweat, such as chromium, selenium and others. When this happens, a mineral deficiency is possible and you can just collapse from such condition without any warning. It is therefore necessary to supplements yourself with mineral supplements in general also.

For most older people death is quite common during a high heat most of the issue has to do with dehydration. For some reason or another old people simply do not know when they need water. When people get older, their sense of thirst becomes dull. It is this reason why people as they get older appear dehydrated or die of dehydration whenever there is hot weather. I have observed that people's sense of thirst starts getting dull as early as 40 years of age. Therefore it is necessary to monitor the body's thirst by some other external means instead of just relying on our own instinct.

Most standard way of drinking plenty of water that we all heard of is the volume of water, or how many liters of water you drink per day, or how many glasses of water you drink per day. Usually there is a consensus of 8 glass. This I disagree. How much you drink pretty much depends on the temperature of weather. It would be ridiculous to drink 8 glass of water while the temperature is below freezing. It is hardly enough water if you are running 100 mile marathon and just drink 8 glasses of water either. What happens if you are 8 foot tall and another one is 4 foot tall? Do you think BOTH will drink the standard 8 glasses of water?

Therefore, I have suggested many people here to use a newer standard of determining how much water is enough, depending on your own body's physiology. It is not perfect, since we don't have rocket science equipment to gauge it, but it is the best that I can come up at the moment!

One way you can track WHEN YOUR BODY NEEDS water is to observe the color of your urine. A light yellow color is the standard. Any color darker or deeper then this means the body is really out of water and you don't even know it. However this is not an accurate gauge for sudden hot weather scenarios. It just track whether you GENERALLY drink enough water, or the day. It is a rough measure.

You also need a second measure also: the frequency of urination. In case the urination is not frequent, you need to take note of the frequency of your urination under MODERATE temperature. Assuming that over the course of the day, you urinate say 4 times. So in a very hot weather, the frequency of urination should remain constant. If not, you are simply not drinking enough water. You can make an approximate time between urination also, such as every 12/4 (12 hour day/4 urination = 3 hour), every 3 hours you should urinate, plus or minus say 1 hour. If you don't urinate within this range, THEN DRINK WATER! It can save you your life from dehydration, especially if your don't know you are thirsty!

Most senior citizens have this problem, but I make it a point for 40 and over. However, in practice, people of all ages should use this method. The older the more fatal it is. Young people don't die, from dehydration, but they do die from mineral/salts exhaustion!

In summary take plenty mineral supplements of magnesium, and vitamin C. Often times, take mineral supplements also. Don't forget to drink sports water. And finally be sure to gauge the color of your urine and the length of time between urination.

With the suggested method of monitoring my own thirst by observation rather relying on my own instincts, I have found that my body needs more than twice the amount of water in a hot weather. It is my bad habit that if I don't monitor them, I will often get dehydrated by drinking less than half of what my body needs. This could be potentially dangerous as this might introduce heat stroke or heat exhaustion.

There are other special considerations:

For people with diabetic conditions, heat exhaustion can be more serious. Therefore, they need to make their schedule of how much water by establishing THEIR OWN STANDARD color, and frequency urination UNDER moderate temperatures on the basis of the amount of sugar in their urine. I used a Brix refractometer, to measure the ideal sugar urine not to exceed say 3-4 brix. Then I will drink enough water slowly over say 3 hours and check for the exact color, and do the exact frequency of urination over the course of the day to get the urinary sugar in a safe range. As a rule a diabetic will drink about twice more water than other people at moderate temperature, so that the blood sugar does not get over at toxic level."

[YEA]  04/15/2008: Christine from Virginia Beach, USA: "When the body is under stress, the need for Vitamin C goes up. Unlike other creatures, we can't make our own Vitamin C and do not have an appetite for it.

A study done years ago demonstrated that using Vitamin C will prevent heat exhaustion. Best bet: use sodicum ascorbate because it is buffered and won't hurt your stomach.
See: http://www.seanet.com/~alexs/ascorbate/194x/index.htm#Weaver-1948"