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Phydeau
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 Posted - 04/14/2008 : 12:15:54 PM
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I was going to post this in the "sleeping nude" thread, but thought it was important enough to not bury it on page 27 of that thread. It occurred to me that hypothermia may be a bit more likely to happen to nudists than the general population, so I thought it might be a good idea to give people a refresher course on the treatment.
I had a bit of a scary moment early this morning. I had fallen asleep nude on the couch without a blanket, and my heat was turned off. I wasn't expecting the temperature to drop as much as it did (plus, I had been drinking before I nodded off, so I probably felt a little warmer than I would otherwise). In any case, I woke up a little bit when I rolled over, and realized something was wrong. Apparently, being asleep caused my body to bypass the "shivering and goosebumps" stage of hypothermia, and was heading towards a more advanced stage.
I don't want to confuse people on how I knew this, because it relates to normal conditions when you sleep, so you can read about hypothermia here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypothermia.
The important thing is knowing how to treat it. My time in the boy scouts possibly saved my life this morning.
Blankets are sometimes not enough. I believe I might have been at a point where this was true. I cranked up the heat and put on some clothes. Luckily, I had some coffee left that I was able to microwave. The idea is to raise the body's core temperature. It's important not to warm the body too quickly, as it can cause cold blood to rush to the heart. After I drank the coffee, I gave myself a minute to let the coffee start to warm me up. It's recommended to huddle with another person. Short of going to one of my neighbors and asking for a hug, that was not an option. So I took a WARM, but not HOT shower. It's hard to tell what temperature water is when you're cold, so here's an easy trick: if the water doesn't feel cold, it's warmer than you. You can adjust as you go along. Just keep it at that point where it feels "kind of" warm.
I ended up standing in front of my oven with its door open, drinking another cup of coffee. It took about 30 minutes before I felt safe enough to crawl into bed.
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success
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Posted - 04/14/2008 : 10:18:05 PM
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If you were in danger, warming from the outside in (shower & oven) was not a good thing to do. When this is done to a person that is truely hypothermic, there is a very real risk that icy blood that had been previously isolated from their core will be pumped into their heart, shocking and possibly stopping it. As I understand it, medical personnel warm the core and allow the body to restart circulation to the extremeties on its own. Also, if you were truely in danger, I'm not sure you would have been able to wake up.
--Success
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Phydeau
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Posted - 04/14/2008 : 10:51:30 PM
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success -- You'd be right on all of that if it was an extreme case. I didn't need a lavage. The apartment was only down to 50 degrees, and I took my time with the warmth. The fact that I was able to walk and think indicated that I wasn't THAT cold to begin with. I think I kind of made it sound like I was seconds from death. I was just unusually cold.
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WyldspringNudist
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Posted - 04/15/2008 : 01:33:13 AM
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Oh Boy Scouts, how we love thee.... Hypothermia is no joke. To those of us who live in the deserts we need to be wary of sudden temperature drops. I had a simular experiance when I was camping in the mountains of New Mexico and feel asleep before makinng sure my camp site had pervisions for the cold and the temperature dropped to 20 degrees in the night. This was in August. I think everyone could do with a fresher on basic medical practices in this area.
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ßeachcomber
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Posted - 04/19/2008 : 3:49:29 PM
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I don't think you were in any danger of hypothermia at 50° F (10°C). I live in northern England and we sleep with the window open all year round. It often drops below freezing in our bedroom (we sleep nude, although we are covered by a duvet).
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Hypothermia
