Thank you. I am making a copy of this and putting it on our refrigerator. Next time a "flash" hits me, I will know what is going on and so will anyone around me. Janice ----- Original Message ----- From: marieke dufresne To: [email protected] Sent: Wednesday, April 08, 2009 11:57 AM Subject: [TMIC] RE: tmic-digest Digest V2009 #226
Temperature Regulation: http://www.apparelyzed.com/temperature.html Temperature Regulation A normal, healthy human is able to maintain a constant body temperature of approximately 98.6F despite the temperature of the environment. In a hot environment, the body sends a signal to the brain via the spinal cord to say the body is overheating, the brain then sends a signal back down the spinal cord and tells the body to cool itself by perspiration which evaporates and cools the skin. In cold weather, the body senses the lower temperature and our brain tells us to put more clothes on to warm ourselves up. Most people with complete spinal cord injuries do not sweat below the level of the injury and many quadriplegics cannot even sweat above the injury (even though they may sweat due to autonomic dysreflexia). With loss of the ability to sweat or vasoconstrict within affected dermatomes the patient becomes poikilothermic and needs careful control of their environmental conditions. Therefore, if a high paraplegic or quadriplegic is in an outside temperature over 90 F, especially when the humidity is high, the body temperature will begin to rise. Likewise in a cold environment, the body may not be able to get the messages through to the brain that the body is cooling down, and if left untreated, the person will soon become hypothermic. This also applies to those with "incomplete" spinal cord injuries, though it may be to a lesser degree, but not necessarily so. The feeling that our legs are on fire or ice cold (when they are not) is due to neuropathic pain/sensations, not temperature regulation. The burning feeling may be brought on by overheating, but as noted by many of us here, it is a constant whether we get hot or not... Marieke RN, TM @T1 since March 2004 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Tell the whole story with photos, right from your Messenger window. Learn how!
