chipper, chainsaw, chaps, allergy meds and 85 degrees

[LoneCowboy]

are a BAD mix

Yesterday went out to chip some brush piiles for a customer. we've done this a few times, but usually cut it ourself. this time, the ditch company had come in and cut everything down and just left it. (I know, unbelievable, i would have come unglued) and it's actually been down for a few months. So weeds and bindweed and such have come around it.
totally underestimated it (good thing I work by the hour). I work the chainsaw to get off the big pieces and the wife keeps throwing them into the chipper. Wearing my safety chaps. i've worn these before, but in the spring and fall, never during the heat. It's allergy season adn right before the job I had taken another pill (some anti-hystimine, i dunno, I mix and match them til my nose stops running)

Ugh
After about 2 hours I'm getting toasty, unable to catch my breath, etc. I mean, i work hard, but this is getting ridiculous and I'm sweating something awful. i finally decide to take off the chaps, they are just too hot. They don't breathe and my jeans are just soaked. We take a big long break in the shade, drink a whole big thing of gatorade. She's plugging along but I'm getting beat up. work another 45 minutes, get to about halfway (yes, i thought the whole job would take 3 hours, it was all intermingled and dropped on top fo each other and then the weeds have grown up, what a mess).

finally realize, you know what, I feel terrible. I feel like I'm going to toss my cookies and we're done here for today. the wife wants to keep going (total reversal of roles). Drank 2 more bottles of water, packed up, sucking wind, whole bit. i refused to pick up the chain saw for the last half hour, didn't feel safe at all.

made the wife drive home and just went inside and poured myself into a cold shower. I shivered most of the night, had big time shakes, even with drinking like 5 more bottles of water.
Obviously, most of you have figured out what took me 1/2 the day to figure out.

BIG TIME HEAT EXHAUSTION.
Combination of all the things and I think the allergy pills kicked it over the top.
I still feel crappy today.
Be careful out there, drink lots.

 

[rback33]

It's amazing how quickly you can get to that point. Sounds like you were cutting it close... it's good to now the little lady was there just in case it came on too fast... at least you had the sense to stop.. not everyone does...

 

[ultrarunner]

Long Distance Runners use electrolyte tablets... some people call them salt tablets.

Makes a world of difference, but as you know, don't operate equipment with diminished capacity...

 

[Farmwithjunk]

It's been 3 or 4 years, but one summer I was loading hay on the trailer to deliver. I'd sold a couple loads and my help wasn't able to get there in time, so I started in on it myself. About an hour into loading, my son-in-law shows up. He's looking at me sort of funny. Finally he asked me if I was alright. I said yes and kept going. In a few minutes he asked me again. By that time I wasn't so sure. He made me stop. I was disoriented, hot, but I'd stopped sweating. (It was 98 degrees) I was dehydrated and about to go down for the count. Eddie went and got me a couple bottles of water. I drank both of them in seconds. While he went after more water, I began to feel a little better. By the time he got back, I was beginning to realize just HOW BAD I felt. It took 2 or 3 days before I was back to normal. (whatever normal is for me ) It doesn't take long. Heat and hard work will get you even if you're used to it. Throw in some medicine and you have the recipe for disaster.

Over the next few days after an event like that, make sure you drink even more water than normal. Rehydrate yourself. Dehydration and heat exhaustion are 2 completely different animals but BOTH will benefit from plenty of water.

 

[jeffinsgf]

Hey, Cowboy, any tick bites in recent history?

I had exactly the same scenario 3 summers ago. Working a chain saw and a chipper hard in hot weather. I just got to the point I couldn't take it any more. I wrote it off to heat exhaustion. The flu like symptoms that followed I wrote off to a bug I caught because of my weakened condition from the heat stress. 3 days later I was in the hospital with doctors running every test in the book on me. Turned out I had Ehrliciosis, which I got from a tick bite a week before my chipper episode.

If the chills continue and a fever develops, get it checked out. Most tick borne diseases can be easily diagnosed and treated if caught early. My doctor told me if I had put off coming in another day, I would have not made it. I was in the hospital for a week and on my back at home for 3.

It is likely just what you think it is -- heat exhaustion, but if you have pulled any ticks off you recently, I would watch it very, very closely.

 

[LoneCowboy]

no ticks, but thanks for the tip.

Yeah, there wasn't much of me being able to go on, I probably went on too long. (i'm a guy, we never quit. ), I was flat whipped.

 

[jbrumberg]

Hyperthermia, dehydration, and throw in a dose of antihistamines and you are courting disaster. You did the right thing by ingesting gatorade and taking the shower later, but you should have drank/drunk(?) the gatorade before the strenuous activity and/or taken the "salt tabs" . Sounds like you had heat stroke with the disorientation. Why is it that we tend to do the "right thing" after the facts? Glad you are "ok". Jay