This is a transcript of a Dr. Jay Show broadcast on 1560TheGame. Dr. J. Michael Bennett is a Board Certified Orthopedic Surgeon and a Fellowship Trained Sports MedicinePhysician serving patients from Katy, Fort Bend County, Metro Houston and Southeast Texas from offices in Houston and Sugar Land, TX. Call 281-633-8600 for an appointment. Our special guest today is Dr. Terence Chang, a family practice physician Board Certified in Sports Medicine from Physicians at Sugar Creek in Sugar Land, TX. Bob Lewis, from 1560TheGame, is also participating.
Here’s the transcript of the seventh portion of the Show:
LEWIS: We’ve talked about four different types of heat-related illnesses. At what point and with which one of these do you actually call 9-1-1?
CHANG: The heat stroke. When they are out of it, when they can’t talk to you, when they’re just looking and they’re talking a bunch of nonsense.
LEWIS: And not exhaustion?
BENNETT: I think anytime you’re going to need somebody to evaluate that you should do it. If you’re not sure, and you need somebody to be evaluated, and if you’re not sure if that patient needs an I-V or something like that, then you’re probably going to need somebody there from EMS or a physician that’s available to evaluate that person. So I think that heat stroke is the most serious because that is obviously the most devastating one but at all the football games that I’ve covered there’s at least EMS at the games and a lot of times if you have a football player fall over with a cramp or are having some issues with they are confused or dizzy, sometimes we’ll just have EMS evaluate them; if they need to have an I-V, they’ll put an I-V in them. When I used to cover teams out in Florida, the professional teams and the collegiate teams out there, we did all the I-Vs, the doctors did all the I-Vs, we put the I-Vs in the patients. And I can tell you that nothing is harder than putting an I-V in somebody that’s dehydrated because their veins are all flat. You’re sticking them like a million times.
LEWIS: Did you keep bags of ice in an ice chest and things of that nature?
BENNETT: You’ve got to have all of that available. I think that you’ve got to have cold bags, you’ve got to have I-V fluids, you’ve got to have catheters; basically that should all be available in your medical kit or nearby EMS.
CHANG: One of the things that we do is we take a cooler, put a bunch of ice and a bunch of water in there and then throw towels in there. So you can reuse those towels over and over, put them on top of the neck, on top of the head when their helmets are off, you can have them take their pads off and have them sit in the cool shade and then use bags of ice and put it into their armpits and their groin. That brings them down nicely, so over the course of maybe thirty minutes to an hour they actually start to feel a lot better.
BENNETT: Dr. Chang do you know of any new or upcoming kinds of strategies regarding this? I know that you are active with HBU and Houston Baptist, and are you guys incorporating anything in particular regarding heat illnesses or things like that regarding the sports programs out there?
CHANG: I think in terms of up and coming stuff, the key thing that I think most people need to know about is it starts at the top, it starts with leadership, it starts with the coaches and it starts with the parents. So when you recognize and you understand what’s going on and how this is, it’s easier to prevent. The Marine Corps actually have a buddy system. They train together with a buddy and they all pair off and so they know when their buddy does not look right. And so that’s early detection and that prevents all of this other stuff down the road from happening.
BENNETT: That’s great and I think once again the thing to hammer home is that education and really doing your due diligence is what this show is all about. You’ve got to do your due diligence. You’ve got to go in there and make sure you know what you’re talking about, you’ve got to make sure what these symptoms look like, and when you’ve got your kid and you’re taking them out to Little League, are they on an allergy medication? Are they taking something for ADHD? How hot is it that day? Do they have something to drink? Are they wearing pads? Does their coach take this into consideration? Are they taking frequent breaks? I mean these are all things that you’ve got to do. And if you think that that coach is not doing it correctly, then you need to bring it up. I mean it’s your responsibility. Because a lot of these parents probably don’t know. So if you’re listening to this show, we hope more than anything that you can walk away from this show with a little bit of knowledge that might help you help your kid and prevent something tragic or devastating from happening. Because I mean it’s crazy. You hear the news and it seems like during the summertime, it seems that at least every month there’s some kind of disaster or fatality out there on the football fields or in regards to training. Taking a proactive measure and really doing your due diligence and learning about this stuff is key.
And another thing is about those energy drinks. I think that’s another big issue, too. But that’s a whole other topic and we could definitely discuss that. Supplements and energy drinks and all of that we’ll definitely do that another week; maybe we’ll do that next week.
LEWIS: Rather than dehydrating yourself, is there a supplement that could help prevent heat-related illnesses?
CHANG: Water.
BENNETT: Yeah, I think we’ll stick with the basics.
CHANG: There’s no magic bullet. Sorry.
BENNETT: Well, anyway, this is kind of rounding up the show here. This is Saturdays with Dr. J, we appreciate you guys tuning in, once again I want to give a shout out to Texas Sports Medicine Institute – www.texassportsmed.com – for sponsoring the show. And I also want to thank Dr. Terrence Chang for coming in and helping us out with this topic today. And Bob Lewis as well. And, Dr. Chang, if you need to get in touch with Dr. Chang, you can look up the Physicians of Sugar Creek. www.sugarcreekphysicians.com
So we’ll be back next Saturday. Make sure to tune in. We’ll be talking about I’m sure some wellness, orthopedics and a little bit of everything. So we appreciate you tuning in and we’ll see you next week on Saturdays with Dr. Jay.
