Climber/ Treeworker Injuries and Treatments

When I smoked cigarettes I would get by on coffee, cigs and a bit of water until dinner around 5 or 6 pm no problem. Wasn't Happy Coffee though, whatever that is :/:...
 
Well, you probably got me on the eating right thing!!! :lol: Honestly tho, the electrolytes help in my experience. I've had a heat injury before i learned that, and will not make the same mistake again. You might have been blessed with a more tolerant physique, I'm not sure. If you go to the er dehydrated, they use a saline solution to hydrate you, so i would think that in extreme weather working long hours, you need to do the same. The cdc and osha agree with you to a point, but when it gets really hot just about all companies in construction actually supply squincher packets to keep the workforce properly hydrated. That costs money, and they wouldn't do that unless it was deemed medically prudent.

Electrolytes, it's what plants crave! :lol:

https://youtu.be/GFD2ggNxR1g

If you drink sufficient water, you'll never get dehydrated, and won't need ER levels of care to recover, and certainly not just to stay hydrated...duh! Circular logic.
:D
 
The body is designed to function with a definite quantity/concentration of thousands of different molecules. Water and electrolytes are some of them.
Keep them just at the sweet spot and you are fine, no matter what you encounter. There's a tolerance (+ or -) for every of them which allows to still maintain the function, with more or less work for the body to keep going though. Go past the low or the high thresholds, and you fall in big trouble, as it can't no longer function properly.
The main problem is that we don't have a gauge for each and every molecules to know what's up inside. Even for the main component: water. So it's only guessing, bringing some supplies and checking the alarm signals. But when one eventually rings, it's too late and the body is already struggling.
Push it too far and it becomes an ER time, or worse.
 
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  • #234
Guys are too tough for their own good, too often.

Dehydration leads to being a DIChead, disoriented (spacey, where are my gloves/ glasses? what did I come to the truck for?), Irritable, and Combative (if you're looking for an argument, tell a dehydrated person that they are dehydrated).


SOOO many people will wait until the engine growls to check the oil, and refill back into the operating range, by analogy.


IDK, my method is that I can't read anybody's mind or body better than they can read their own. Employees are told to stop for water before they get thirsty, eat before they get hungry, and take any breaks they want. I've never hired a lazy person.
 
I worked too long in a hot compressor hall last week. Heart pounding, felt like puking, sudden joint pain. Hard to stop when you can see the end of the job, even though I wasn't against the clock. Hero move.
 
That may be true B, but that is not my reality at all. In the working conditions that i experience at times, your body is literally doing all it can to drop temperature, and it can't because of the humidity, temperature and ppe required for the job. What happens is that you sweat, your body temperature doesn't drop, so your body freaks out and ups the sweating attempting to frantically cool itself. It purges salts in an attempt to increase surface area, to the point where everything you have is stained white in a day. You use on average 3 pairs of gloves so they can dry and you don't get electric shock, drying them on hooks in front of the radiator of the welding machine. It's easy to say stop and cool down for a bit, but you have to keep up or you're gone, and usually if you start a tie in you work til you are done. If you are by blowing gas, add a fr coverall and nomex hood to the equation as well. There have days where i will drink 3 to 4 gallons of water, but still feel like crap because i have sweated out too many salts. Salts also allow your body to retain the water you drink.
 
Do what works for you, Kyle. I'd never tell you to do differently just because I think such and such...

But I'll maintain that if you are drinking multiple gallons of water on a temp/humidity stressful day like you report, and have issues with salts, then your base diet is not giving you what you need in that capacity.

Carry on, sir. We can agree to disagree :).
 
It is not supposed to reach us.
It'll be hot, but not too badly so.
 
-6c here on the way to work Monday...still interesting how much fluid you lose even working in the cold
 
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  • #247
Relative humidity is usually reported, at least in the US. Absolute humidity is not. Both are low in subzero temps. Water vapor freezes to the ground and objects, so is removed from the air. You lose water from your moist lungs to dry air in and moister air out. Avoiding sweating is ideal. Keeps you warmer, and less water loss.
 
I took a lazy day wednesday, but the job doesn't advance very much like that. So yesterday and today, I worked on the morning and quit between 12h30 and 13 h.
Two days for one day-job, so less money, but the heat is bearable and I'm in a better state than I was tuesday. The teeshirt was still fully soaked and actually I quit just before it begins to drip on the ground.
Pretty uncomfortable to think that all that sweat is my vital fluid going away.:(
Fortunately, I have plenty of not iced ice-tea to replace it :D
 
Got a recipe for yours Gary?
Often we just have iced tea from the store. Sometimes we make 2 gallons of sun tea then add honey, sugar, lemon, or mint since we got a ton of it growing by the back door.
 
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