Disability, Chronic Illness, Mental Illness, Ageing, and Children

Heat is hard on the human body.
Morbidity not just mortality
Most research and information focuses on acute care for heat-illness and the cause of heat-related death. But what about those who suffer through the heat and may even become quite ill but manage to survive? This is a topic that has not been researched nearly enough but there is agreement that there can be long term effects on people’s bodies after experiencing heat stroke or other heat-related illnesses or possibly just as a result of exposure, particularly prolonged or repeated exposure to hot environments. It is also the case that some health conditions flare or worsen during heat waves but less clear is what the long-term implications of those may be.
We, as a society, need to aim higher than making sure everyone survives - barely and with considerable suffering - and yet we are currently failing even at that.
What parts of our body are involved/affected?
The short answer to what parts of our body are affected by heat is 'everything'. The hypothalamus, which is the manager in charge of body temperature, works to protect the core temperature because there is a very narrow variation in temperature tolerated before serious and even fatal harm occurs.
Understanding how our bodies try to prevent overheating and the stress it puts on our bodies is helpful for identifying what may work differently in your own.
Too often discussions around heat seem to suggest the body is either fine or in crisis. Much like the binary of “well” or “sick” it doesn’t reflect the experience of heat, particularly for disabled people.
We want something that recognizes the existence of zebras, not just horses. Rare disease and rare combinations of conditions exist. Actually being rare is not rare.
This site is written with the understanding of something Gabrielle Peters has named the “Crip Cascade Effect.” The crip cascade effect understands that something that impacts a disabled person can result in setting off a chain of events that would not occur and isn’t planned for or expected by non-disabled people, including those in health care.
Disabled people especially know our bodies and what functions differently for us than a non-disabled person. The hope is you will be able to personalize and adjust the information about how a typical non-disabled adult body responds to heat and the processes involved and how those are affected by doing that work and what happens if they fail to succeed.
Crip Links
Below is a small list of how heat impacts some people with different disabilities or at different points in their lives than the non-disabled non-senior non-pregnant adult most information is geared towards.
This is just a starter list and if you have a blog post, research paper or just a link you have found helpful, please email it to us so we can add it to this list.
Content note: Some links include mentions of self-harm.
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Keep Children Cool! Protect Your Child From Extreme Heat
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Babies in Hot Weather
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Keeping Children Safe During Hot Weather
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Extreme Heat. Staying Safe if You Have Health Issues
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Some Chronic Conditions That Can’t Take The Heat
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10 Ways Wheelchair Users Can Beat The Heat
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Heat Stress and Older People
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Heat exposure and cardiovascular health outcomes: a systematic review and meta-analysis
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Heat stroke is a danger, but cardiovascular stress causes more heat wave deaths.
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Keeping Your Lungs Healthy In the Heat
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The Effects of Climate Change on Patients with Chronic Lung Disease
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Air Pollution and Chronic Airway Diseases: What People Should Know
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Managing Diabetes in the heat
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Climate change and the kidney
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The Impacts of Extreme Heat on Mental Health
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What Happens to the Brain During Heat Stroke
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How High Heat Can Impact Mental Health
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Higher Temperatures Increase Suicides in US and Mexico
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How New York’s heat waves have worsened dementia and mental health
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Alzheimer’s Foundation warns heat can be deadly for dementia patients
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Is Cognitive function Affected by Hot Weather
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Heat stress, plasma concentrations of adrenaline, noradrenaline, 5-hydroxytryptamine and cortisol, mood state and cognitive performance
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Heat Waves Don’t Just Give You Sunburn, They Can Harm Your Mental Health Too
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Researchers say extreme heat is making mental health crises more common
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It’s not just heat stroke. Extreme temperatures pose special risk to people with chronic illness (and that’s a lot of us)
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Potential adverse health consequences of climate change related to rheumatic diseases
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Overheating, Thyroid Disease and Lupus
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How Weather Exacerbates Autoimmune Disease
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Managing Your Autoimmune Disease During Summer’s Hottest Days
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Dealing with Heat and Hot Weather - Myasthenia Gravis
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How the Heat Affects Me as Someone with LEMS
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Temperature Sensitivity in MS
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Does Humidity Make Your Joints Hurt? Here’s Why, and What to Do About It
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Is the Summer Heat Affecting Your Joints?
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How to survive the summer heat with POTS
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6 Unexpected Symptoms of Summer With Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome and POTS
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Heat Waves Tied to Flare-Ups of Digestive Illnesses
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How Summer and Heat Impact My IBD and Ostomy
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Dear Sunshine, Please Go Away. My Crohn’s Hates You
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Spinal Cord Injury and body temperature
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Weather and air pollution as triggers of severe headaches
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Climate Change Impact on Seasonal Allergies
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To My Fellow Fibro Warriors Struggling with the Heat
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How to cope with a heatwave if you have ME/CFS
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Twenty-Seven Ways a Heat Wave Can Kill You: Deadly Heat in the Era of Climate Change
