23 May 2015 Soak up summer in a healthy way

by John Patton

In the cold of winter, everyone is thinking about the first day of summer. Counting the days until summer break, they dream of trips to the lake and soaking up the sun.

Swimming, sun bathing at the pool, taking summer vacations, enjoying outdoor festivals and forgetting the frigid beginning of 2015 is on the minds of many in the 501.

Summer in Arkansas can be so much fun. It can also be painful for those who don’t pay attention to their health.

Sun damage

Coming home from the lake is more fun without a painful sunburn, insect bites or broken bones.

Most skin cancer results from past sun damage, advises Lori Reynolds, a certified oncology educator and a registered nurse with 15 years of experience caring for cancer patients.

Sun damage doesn’t have to spoil the day. Reynolds offers some advice beginning with a liberal application of sunscreen lotion to protect against both UVB and UVA rays. She says the lotion should have a minimum SPF rating of 15. SPF stands for Sun Protection Factor and refers to the theoretical amount of time a person can stay in the sun without getting sunburned. For example, an SPF of 15 would allow them to stay in the sun 15 times longer than they could without protection.

Going solely on SPF levels is not enough when it comes to sun protection. For instance, SPF does not rate UVA rays, so it is important to check labels for zinc oxide or titanium dioxide because they protect against the full spectrum of UVA rays.

Some additional tips:

Don’t forget to apply sunscreen to the earlobes, neck and feet and reapply every  90 minutes.

Make sure sunscreen is water proof.

Opt for loose clothing and large hats.

Check skin areas every two months for abnormalities such as wounds that do not heal, new irregularities such as scaly or upraised areas that appear and growth in diameter, changes in color or asymmetry of existing areas.

Apply sunscreen on cloudy as well as sunny days. “Some of the worst sun burns are on cloudy days,” warns Reynolds.

In addition to possible skin cancer, sun damage also reduces the skins elasticity, causing premature wrinkles. Reynolds adds that “you can’t undo what has already been done, but you can learn from it and make sure it doesn’t get worse.”

While skin protection is very important this summer, there are other, more dramatic health hazards that can spoil summer fun with a trip to the emergency department.

Conway Regional Emergency Department physicians treat numerous summer-related injuries each year including: heat exposure and heat stroke, dehydration, boating accidents, ATV injuries, insect bites, campfire burns and fireworks injuries.

“There are more people outdoors, and we all tend to be accident prone,” said emergency medicine Dr. Evan Gregory.  “Most of these activities are related to extracurricular activities, and many of these injuries can be prevented by being more aware of our surroundings and using basic safety precautions.”

Gregory provided a few tips to avoid common summertime injuries.

Stay hydrated

If outdoors, people need more than the standard six to eight glasses of water per day.  “It is important to remember that drinking alcoholic, caffeinated and carbonated beverages will dehydrate you, further increasing the need for more water,” he said. “You have to replace the water in your body. Also, children are more susceptible to dehydration than the rest of us, so they need additional attention.”

Some general symptoms of dehydration and heat injury to watch for include:

Dizziness

Headaches

Fatigue

Nausea and or vomiting

Lack of sweating and urination

Rapid heart rate

Avoiding tick bites

Lesser known injuries can result from tick bites. Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever can be accompanied by red spots on the skin and abdominal pain, fever and vomiting. Another tick-borne illness found in Arkansas is Ehrlichiosis, which causes flu-like symptoms.  Both can be fatal if left untreated.

General precautions in outdoor areas where ticks are present include using repellent sprays, wearing pants instead of shorts and long sleeve shirts to provide additional covering, routinely checking the body during baths and showers and quickly removing ticks. “My experience has been that a tick is more likely to spread disease if it is attached for a longer period of time,” said Gregory.

Most of these hazards are easily avoidable without lessening the fun of those weekend getaways to the outdoors that so many Arkansans enjoy.