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“Don’t judge each day by the harvest you reap but by the seeds that you plant.”

Robert Louis Stevenson,  (1850-1894), Scottish essayist, poet, and author.

Thermic Shock

Thermic shock occurs when you do not comply with extreme temperature changes and act accordingly.

Many people, mostly youngsters, lose their lives when plunging into water without giving the body time to adapt.

This is a frequent occurrence, especially in summer months, under scorching heat.

There are two situations, but basically, they result from the same primum movens.

The first, better known and recognized, is when an overheated swimmer plunges into cold water.

The second, less well understood, is prolonged exposition in hot atmosphere, and especially under direct sunlight.

Both have attracted little interest in medical circles and thus have been little studied.

The first happens in a wink, while the second takes few seconds or even minutes.

Both concern more people in older age but can be observed in imprudent tourists of all ages.

I meant same primum movens, as an exhaustion of the neurovegetative system, unable to cope with the temperature change.

This part of the nervous system is composed of two pendants, which like Yin and Yang, are complementary to each other.

The first is the sympathetic one, whose neurotransmitters are adrenalin and noradrenalin, while the second is the parasympathetic with neurotransmitter acetylcholine.

The first is more potent with contribution by the medullary suprarenal gland. 

The first mentioned situation of thermic shock of an overheated body plunged into cold water ends most probably with Takotsubo’s cardiopathy.

Here extreme overreaction of the sympathetic system ends in ventricular fibrillation.

The second situation of overheating for prolonged period is probably due to overreaction of the parasympathetic pendant where the sympathetic one cannot follow.

Circulatory collapse is the result!

Also, accessory circumstances are sometimes of utter importance.

Thus, for instance going for a swim after a heavy meal, when the neuro-vegetative system is busy with a second task, is one frequent situation taking its toll.

Remember Barbarossa!

In the second previously mentioned situation protection against sunrays is crucial.

Wearing a straw hat (Panama or sombrero type for instance) has a protective value.

If the organism cannot evacuate the heat excess efficiently, an insulation occurs.

Disorientation, drowsiness, and loss of contact with reality follow.

Sometimes an epileptic seizure can be observed. Lowering of seizure threshold!

On morphological basis, brain arterial and venous thromboses appear.

Such occurrences are unexpected in temperate climates, but they happen more frequently with the climate warming phenomenon, and apart from that there are sometimes so-called sun eruptions, which cannot be foretold, but should be considered in the meteorological report.

To the two kinds of heat strokes described above, which are acute, you can add a third variety, chronic this one.

The neurovegetative system is called autonomous, which is not quite correct, as it is tightly linked to the main neurological system.

Thus, exhaustion of first leads with time to such in second one.

Here effect takes place with days, weeks and months, and overall can be observed reduced productivity of population.

Tiredness is most often reported and this despite sufficient access to liquids and maintained urine output.