Doctor’s orders: Stay hydrated in this heat

MEMPHIS, Tenn. — It’s summertime and with the sweltering heat, health experts have warnings.

The CDC says the heat risk for Wednesday in Shelby County was “major,” saying this level can lead to heat impacts for everyone.

At Le Bonheur Children’s Hospital doctors are seeing patients experiencing “more of the heat exhaustion, dehydration, some cramping and that’s just from kids not having adequate hydration,” said Dr. Rudy Kink.

Symptoms include feeling tired. “They’re dehydrated, some of them are short of breath because they have underlying problems like asthma, some of them are muscle cramping because their electrolytes and salts in their blood are off,” Kink said.

Kink says he’s seeing a little bit of an increase, usually about one or two kids per day. He anticipates more with the Fourth of July coming right around the corner.

His advice is to stay safe, stay inside during the hottest parts of the day if you can, and when outside, make sure children take frequent breaks to cool off. Also, staying hydrated is crucial.

“I tell parents it’s not the amount that they drink, it’s how are they doing,” Kink said. “So are they going to the restroom every hour and a half? That shows you that they’re well hydrated. So no matter how much they think the kid is drinking, if they’re not using the restroom, they’re probably not drinking enough.”

A spokesperson with Baptist Memorial Hospital says they haven’t seen an increase in heat-related visits to the Memphis ER so far this summer. Baptist DeSoto has seen 15 heat-related cases in the ER in the past two weeks.

But overall data of those kind of visits isn’t tracked to do a comparison year over year.

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