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Heat exhaustion or heat stroke? Here’s how you can tell the difference

As the blazing sun beats down across large parts of the country, cases of heat-related illnesses are on the rise as well. Here’s a guide to the entire spectrum of heat-linked disorders and what you can do to treat them.

2 min read
A hot day in Kolkata. (Express Photo: Shashi Ghosh)

What are the different types of heat-related illnesses?

Heat-related illnesses comprise a spectrum of disorders from muscle cramps and heat exhaustion to a more serious medical emergency such as heatstroke. These illnesses occur when there is a disruption in regulating the body’s temperature because heat input from the environment and body metabolism is increased compared with output from the skin —— via radiation, evaporation, and convection.

What are heat cramps?

During the heat cramps, patients experience painful, involuntary, spasmodic contractions of skeletal muscle in the calves, thighs and shoulders. In such a situation, the patient is advised to rest in a relaxed environment. The Health Ministry also recommends fluid and salt replacement (oral).

What is heat exhaustion?

When the patient experiences any of the following, the condition is referred to as heat exhaustion. It may progress to a heatstroke if treatment fails.

Headache, nausea, vomiting
Malaise, dizziness
Muscle cramps

In such a situation, the health ministry suggests that we remove the patient from the heat stress area. Also, if the patient doesn’t respond to treatment in 30 minutes, then they should be ‘aggressively’ cooled down to a core temperature of 39°C.

What is a heat stroke? How can it be treated?

If a person has a body temperature greater than 40°C and showing signs of Central Nervous System dysfunction such as confusion, delirium, seizures, and coma, they may be experiencing a heat stroke. Such a person, recommends the Health Ministry, should be immediately removed from the heat stress area, and be ‘aggressively’ cooled down to a core temperature of 39°C.

Kaunain Sheriff M is an award-winning investigative journalist and the National Health Editor at The Indian Express. He is the author of Johnson & Johnson Files: The Indian Secrets of a Global Giant, an investigation into one of the world’s most powerful pharmaceutical companies. With over a decade of experience, Kaunain brings deep expertise in three areas of investigative journalism: law, health, and data. He currently leads The Indian Express newsroom’s in-depth coverage of health. His work has earned some of the most prestigious honours in journalism, including the Ramnath Goenka Award for Excellence in Journalism, the Society of Publishers in Asia (SOPA) Award, and the Mumbai Press Club’s Red Ink Award. Kaunain has also collaborated on major global investigations. He was part of the Implant Files project with the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ), which exposed malpractices in the medical device industry across the world. He also contributed to an international investigation that uncovered how a Chinese big-data firm was monitoring thousands of prominent Indian individuals and institutions in real time. Over the years, he has reported on several high-profile criminal trials, including the Hashimpura massacre, the 2G spectrum scam, and the coal block allocation case. Within The Indian Express, he has been honoured three times with the Indian Express Excellence Award for his investigations—on the anti-Sikh riots, the Vyapam exam scam, and the abuse of the National Security Act in Uttar Pradesh. ... Read More


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