(Dr. Brian Sokalsky, DO, is at the helm of Jersey Shore Sports Medicine in Ocean City and is a board certified family physician with special training in sports medicine. Once per month, Glory Days Magazine publisher Dave O’Sullivan will talk with Dr. Sokalsky about various sports injuries, treatments and prevention methods.) You hear the warnings every time the temperature starts creeping toward 90 degrees consistently. Warnings about heat-related illness and potentially life-threatening heatstroke. You wonder why you keep hearing the same warnings year after year, but it’s because deaths from excessive heat continue to happen to high school athletes across the country. Not nearly at the rate they have in the past, because there is so much education and awareness out there today, but Dr. Sokalsky says that until there are no more heat-related deaths, doctors continue to have to warn parents, coaches and athletes about the dangers. Heat-related illness and death is 100 percent avoidable, Sokalsky says, so until it is completely eliminated, the need for more education always will be there. This is the time of year when teams involved in fall sports such as football, soccer and field hockey begin to ramp up their offseason workouts for the upcoming season. It used to be that water during summer workouts was denied to athletes to “toughen them up.” Between this antiquated theory and future technology, the best defense we have right now to keep kids safe is continued education. Sokalsky said the most important thing for parents and coaches to understand is just how quickly an athlete can go from simply feeling nauseous to being in a life-threatening situation. It can be a matter of minutes on a hot, humid day. 
Brian Sokalsky is a doctor specializing in sports medicine. His office is located in Ocean City. To contact Dr. Sokalsky, call 609-545-8553 “The biggest mistake — and the reason we keep hearing about this every year — is that people don’t take it seriously enough. Being a young athlete, the thought always is ‘oh, that would never happen to me.’ The most important thing is people don’t take it seriously enough and don’t realize how injured they can get,” Sokalsky said. “This is 100 percent preventable. There is never a fluke here. If properly educated, this will not happen. I’m talking to the level of death. You’re going to get dehydration, you’ll get cramps, you’ll even get heat exhaustion, which is a step down from heatstroke, and that’s where you get that racing heart and light-headedness. That’s something to be aware of where you need to get into a shady area and get some water and allow your body time to recover. “(Going from heat exhaustion to heatstroke) can happen very, very quickly. It’s a matter of a degree or two of body temperature. Once your temperature gets above 104 degrees, your blood pressure starts dropping and you’re no longer getting heat out of the body — your body is just basically cooking. And your organs can start shutting down. So it really can be very quick transitioning from ‘this kid doesn’t look so good’ to ‘oh boy, we better call 9-1-1.'” Sokalsky said a big misconception is that athletes who are in good shape are not vulnerable to heat exhaustion or heatstroke. While they are less vulnerable, safety is something every athlete needs to be aware of when practicing in high heat and humidity. “Being in shape obviously helps because the body is used to increased workloads and elevated body temperature, but when it comes to working out in the heat, no matter how good of shape the body is in, you do have to get used to working out in hotter temperatures and higher humidity,” Sokalsky said. “From start to finish, your body temperature starts rising. When it’s hot and humid, your body can’t dissipate the heat it is generating as well as in colder temperatures. It’s relying on a temperature gradient between your skin and the air. So the hotter the air is, the body can’t get that heat out. That’s what sweat is. When sweat evaporates, that’s how the body gets rid of the heat. Initially, the body temperature rises faster than normal; the body then sweats more than normal to try to get that heat out from inside the body; when the sweat doesn’t evaporate, the body just keeps sweating more and it athletes become dehydrated.” Sokalsky said high school coaches need to be very diligent when it comes to monitoring their athletes during summer workouts. “When you start noticing symptoms such as decline in performance, fatigue, increased sweating, nausea, those types of things. Any nausea needs to be taken seriously, but in some ways it’s common sense. If a kid ate a hamburger 20 minutes before working out and is throwing up, he probably just wasn’t ready to work out. But if he’s in 90-degree heat and 70-percent humidity and has been working out for an hour and then gets nauseous, that’s obviously much more serious. But anytime an athlete gets nauseous that needs to be taken seriously,” Sokalsky said. “Coaches need to be aware of what the temperature is and what the humidity level is, and also the what level of conditioning their athletes are in. And then close supervision, making sure there are multiple sets of eyes watching these kids, looking for kids who are starting to not look right, starting to wobble or getting nauseous.”
Be Your Best: Heat exhaustion can happen quickly, so be aware during summer sports workouts
