Outdoor classroom: everything from medicine to treatment

1. How to prevent dehydration during high-altitude mountaineering

When people engage in outdoor sports, they are prone to chest tightness and dehydration in high altitude areas because sweating, breathing, urination and diarrhea can all lead to the loss of water in the body. In high-altitude mountainous areas, the air is extremely dry, so sweat on the body surface evaporates quickly. At the same time, a large amount of water is discharged through rapid mouth breathing, but this is often not noticed, resulting in symptoms of dehydration (hypertonic dehydration). For diseases caused by high temperature, cold, and acute mountain sickness, maintaining good fluid intake is an important preventive and therapeutic measure. It not only reduces the chance of getting sick, but also greatly enhances the overall physiological function of climbers.

Dehydration of the body (hypertonic dehydration)

symptom:

⑴ Mild dehydration: thirst. The amount of water deficiency is 2~4% of body weight.

⑵Moderate dehydration: extreme thirst, fatigue, little urine, dark urine, dry lips and tongue, irritability, poor skin elasticity, and sunken eye sockets. The amount of water deficiency is 4~6% of body weight.

⑶Moderate dehydration: In addition to the above symptoms, hallucinations, delirium, and even coma may also occur. The amount of water deficiency is about 6% or more of body weight.

Preventive measures for dehydration

⑴Drink more water. Drinking hot tea during camp activities can prevent dehydration and keep you warm. Drink a glass of water before starting the activity, and drink an appropriate amount of water (equal amount of beverages) every 30 minutes during the activity. Daily water intake>2000ml/d (camp activities) ~ 3000ml/d (when traveling).

⑵ During strenuous exercise, do not replace water with high-concentration fruit juice or other high-concentration fluids (chocolate drinks, cereals, etc.).

⑶ At the same time, you need to eat appropriate amounts of salty nuts or road foods to replenish the loss of salt in the body.

⑷ Carry a 1L~2L thermos bottle while traveling.

⑸ The amount of water you drink must be evenly distributed during the journey, and full consideration must be given to the amount of water you drink on the return trip and how to deal with emergencies.

⑹ Avoid eating ice and snow to prevent frostbite of the oropharynx.

⑺Quit smoking, drinking, and reducing the intake of spicy and high-salt foods.

Treatment of dehydration

⑴Drinking water. First consider drinking low-concentration glucose water or other hot sugary drinks. If necessary, intravenous fluid replacement can be used.

⑵ Appropriate supplement of salt (oral rehydration salt powder) and vitamins.

⑶ Hot liquid (fruit juice, chocolate drink) or semi-liquid (porridge, oatmeal or soft noodles) to replenish the body's energy. If the patient's thirst is relieved, his mood gradually stabilizes, and he starts to urinate, it indicates that his condition is improving. The patient is conscious, answers relevant questions, and the urine has become clear, indicating that dehydration has been corrected.

2. Wilderness First Aid Skills - Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation

First aid refers to temporary treatment measures taken by oneself or others for sudden injuries or illnesses. The sooner emergency treatment measures are implemented for the injured, the better the effect. If you encounter an accident that you don’t know how to deal with. Under the condition that the injured person is not in danger of life, the injured person should not be moved at will, otherwise the situation will worsen. Before traveling in the wild, every member should receive first aid training.

First aid knowledge

If the injured person is in a coma, you should check whether his/her cardiopulmonary function is normal. Follow the three steps below to check. If a back or neck injury is suspected, care should be taken not to move his/her head and the head should be immobilized as quickly as possible.

Pry open the victim's mouth, remove the obstruction, and then check his airway: Place one hand on the victim's forehead and use two fingers of the other hand to lift the victim's chin and tilt his head back.

Check the casualty's breathing. Press your cheek against the person's mouth and nose for about five seconds to feel their breathing. At the same time, pay attention to the chest movement of the injured person to determine whether the injured person's lung function is normal.

Measure the pulse rate at the trachea to check the injured person's blood circulation. Measure for 5 seconds. If there is a pulse and breathing, place the injured person in the resuscitation position. If there is neither breathing nor pulse, start cardiopulmonary resuscitation.

If the injured person is unconscious, it is best to place him in the resuscitation position so that his tongue does not block his throat and saliva flows out of his mouth to ensure that his airway is open.

If the injured person is unconscious but still breathing, lift the arm that is touching the ground to an appropriate position on the body, place the other arm close to the cheek, straighten the leg that is touching the ground, bend the other leg, pull the injured thigh close to yourself, and let the injured person lie on his side.

Lay the victim's head on the ground and tilt it back with the jaw forward to keep the airway open. If possible, place the injured person's hands under their head.

Artificial respiration

Oxygen accounts for 16% of the air exhaled by humans. Artificial respiration can promote the patient's blood circulation. If the patient has stopped breathing but still has a pulse, repeat 10 times per minute until the patient is breathing on his own.

Let the injured person lie flat on the ground and remove any obstruction in his mouth to ensure unobstructed breathing. Place one hand on the victim's forehead and pinch the nose. Place your other hand under their chin and tilt their head back slightly.

Pinch the victim's nose between your thumb and index finger, and blow air into the victim's lungs through mouth-to-mouth for 2 seconds. Then stop blowing. Let the patient's chest completely deflate.

Repeat step (2) 10 times per minute until the patient can breathe on his own. Check the patient's pulse and if it stops, perform CPR.

Cardiopulmonary resuscitation

CPR provides artificial blood circulation and inflates the lungs. Treatment involves chest compressions to stimulate blood circulation to the head and artificial respiration to maintain blood oxygen levels. The specific method is as follows:

With the patient lying on a firm surface, use the index and middle fingers to feel the lowest rib, then move upward until the middle finger touches the junction of the rib and the sternum.

Place your middle finger on the sternum and move your other palm down along the sternum until it touches your index finger, compressing the chest at this point.

Overlap your hands, interlock your fingers and lift them upwards, straighten your arms and press down hard, then relax, but do not move the object away. Repeat 30 times and then give 2 artificial respirations.

shock

Inadequate supply of oxygen and nutrients to tissues can lead to reduced blood flow throughout the body, causing shock. If the patient does not receive prompt treatment, his or her vital organs will stop working, leading to death. The following are the treatments for patients in shock:

Raise the patient's legs (slightly above the head), keep him awake, undress him, let him relax, and then measure his pulse.

Cover the patient's back and chest with a sleeping bag or coat. Measure their breathing and heart rate. Especially when the patient loses consciousness, if breathing and heartbeat have stopped, perform cardiopulmonary resuscitation.

3. How to prepare a donkey medicine bag

Every time you travel, be sure to carry a small medicine bag in your suitcase. Get ready according to where you are going and how you travel!

City Traveler

When traveling in the city, you can always choose to go to the nearest hospital to get help and treatment from a doctor. Therefore, the medicine bag you carry with you does not need to be too complete. It only needs some commonly used medicines to provide timely treatment.

1. Personal special medicines: If you have special health problems, such as heart disease, high blood pressure, asthma and other chronic diseases, don’t forget to bring life-saving medicines. In addition to not attempting dangerous sports, travelers with heart disease should also prepare nitroglycerin and quick-acting heart pills. People with diabetes should prepare blood sugar-lowering drugs, especially those who need to take insulin. If they need to travel, they need to check the medicines they carry with them carefully. If you are traveling to an equatorial city, even if you are only away for two hours, don't forget to bring a small electronic refrigerator to store insulin injections and ensure their effectiveness.

2. Motion sickness medicine: If you have experienced motion sickness, then motion sickness medicine such as Yunting and Visale is necessary. For example, if you plan to take a boat from Langkawi Island in Malaysia to Penang, taking a motion sickness medicine one hour in advance will make the three-hour journey very pleasant.

3. Gastrointestinal medicine: For travelers, local food is something that cannot be missed. Eating too much at a roadside stall is bound to cause indigestion or bacterial infection of the stomach and intestines. The medicine box must include digestive medicines with beneficial bacteria such as Lactase, Jianweixiaoshi tablets, as well as drugs for treating intestinal bacterial infections such as norfloxacin, berberine, and smecta. Drugs for treating diarrhea are also essential.

4. Anti-inflammatory medicine: Sore throat and constipation are the most common symptoms for travelers, so prepare Niuhuang Jiedu Pills, Huanglian Shangqing Pills, etc., which can greatly eliminate your troubles.

Outdoor backpackers

Away from bustling cities and deep into nature, we are also away from life-saving places with complete equipment and excellent medical resources. Everything is unknown when traveling, so it is safest to be prepared.

If you are only traveling for two or three days, just take the medicines you use most frequently; if the trip is more than five days, then cold medicine, allergy medicine, antidiarrhea medicine, wind oil, cooling oil, Band-Aids, Yunnan Baiyao, gentian violet, etc. become panaceas in special circumstances.

In addition, when traveling outdoors, you may eat less vegetables and fruits, so vitamin supplements are also a good companion. Of course, if your travel destination is very special, you should also prepare special medicines just in case.

1. Red-hot zone: In the Egyptian desert, be sure to prepare anti-heat medicine. When going to the rain forest, you need to take medicine to prevent mosquito bites and heatstroke. Therefore, Huoxiang Zhengqi Pills, Rendan Tablets, cooling oil, and mosquito repellent oil are all good choices. In addition, oral rehydration salts can replace the salt lost through sweating.

2. Dense forests and mountains: Deep mountains and old forests are where poisonous snakes are most frequently found, so it is best to bring antidotes and elastic bandages. If you are bitten by a snake, stay where you are, take out a bandage and tie it tightly above the wound to prevent the venom from spreading. Put the knife on your body on a lighter to burn (disinfect), then make a cut about 1 cm long and 0.5 cm deep on the wound, suck out the venom with your mouth, take snake medicine immediately, and go to the hospital as soon as the situation stabilizes.

3. Plateau areas: When traveling to plateau areas, don’t forget to bring some anti-altitude sickness medicines, such as: Gaoyuanan, Rhodiola rosea, etc. In addition, you can also prepare some medicines to reduce the intensity of altitude sickness, such as sleeping pills, painkillers, motion sickness medicine, quick-acting cold medicine, aspirin, and oral glucose.

Special Tips

The more things in a travel medicine kit, the better. The basic principles should be simplicity and necessity. Since there is no doctor to consult, it is best to take only one medicine at a time to avoid "incompatibility" between drugs caused by chemical reactions and the production of toxic substances due to the use of multiple drugs together.

Do not take sleeping pills easily if you suffer from insomnia caused by temporary irregular work and rest schedules. The condition will naturally heal as your body gradually adapts to the local environment and the regularity of travel movements. If your condition and symptoms are unusual, such as a sudden high fever or vomiting and diarrhea, you should go to a local hospital immediately for examination and diagnosis. Do not take medicine without authorization and delay treatment.

4. Timely treatment of fractures after outdoor sports

Fractures must receive immediate, effective professional care. If conditions are not met, the patient should quickly perform on-site self-rescue to relieve his or her own pain, ensure his or her own life safety, and reduce the occurrence of complications.

The main self-rescue measures are

1. Stop bleeding. For open fractures, if there is heavy bleeding, immediate hemostasis should be performed. Depending on the specific circumstances, compression, pressure bandage or tourniquet can be used.

2. Protect the wound. If there is any obvious foreign matter on the surface of the wound, it can be removed and then covered and bandaged with a clean cloth. For the exposed fracture ends, do not reduce them to avoid bringing contaminants into the deeper layers, but apply protective bandages.

3. Fix the injured limb. Immediate fixation of the injured limb can relieve pain and avoid damage to nerves and blood vessels. The fixation materials can be adapted to local conditions, and wooden boards, branches, etc. can be used. If there is nothing available, the injured upper limb can be fixed to the chest wall, and the lower limb can be fixed to the healthy side.

5. First aid for bee stings outdoors

Poisonous bees include honey bees, wasps (some information also calls them hornets or hornets, and there are many other names. Probably only those who study insect taxonomy can explain it clearly), hornets, bamboo wasps and other species of bees with venomous stings. Among them, bees have the least venom, while wasps and hornets are more venomous, and bamboo wasps have the strongest venom.

Poisonous bees have a stinger at the end of their tail that is connected to a venom gland. After stinging a person, they inject venom into the body, causing poisoning. The sting of a bee has a hook, which often remains in the body after stinging. However, the male wasps have no stings, and the stings of female wasps have no hook.

The venom of honey bees is a slightly yellow, transparent, acidic liquid, mainly containing formic acid and protein; the venom of other poisonous bees is mostly weakly alkaline, mainly containing complex toxins such as histamine, serotonin, bradykinin, etc., which can cause hemolysis, bleeding and neurotoxic effects, and the poisoning reaction is faster and more severe than that of honey bees. This significant difference in the properties of bee venom determines that the right medicine must be used.

Generally, a healthy person, if stung by 5 bees at the same time, will only experience local redness, swelling and severe pain, and will return to normal within a few days. If stung by more than 100 bees at the same time, the body will be poisoned, causing symptoms such as central nervous system damage and cardiovascular dysfunction. If stung by more than 200 bees at the same time, the person will die from paralysis of the respiratory center.

If you are stung by a bee while out and about, do not think it is a big deal; you should take it seriously, otherwise it may lead to serious consequences. There is every reason to believe that some venomous bees are as poisonous as any venomous snake, and the fundamental reason why few people die from venomous bee stings is simply that the amount of venom entering the human body varies greatly. However, even if you are stung by only one or two highly venomous bees such as hornets or bamboo wasps, you will often experience systemic symptoms such as headache, fever, nausea, and vomiting. Those who are allergic to bee venom may quickly develop urticaria, asthma, or anaphylactic shock, or even die from respiratory failure.

6. How to prevent and resolve injuries during hiking

Short-distance crossing

The short-distance crossing mentioned here refers to a one or two-day crossing activity around the city where you live on weekends. The acute injuries caused by this type of outdoor activities are obvious and immediate, such as tingling in the soles of the feet, tendon pain, calf muscle pain, abdominal pain during exercise, etc. Needless to say, you all know that this is the consequence of people with poor physical fitness or who have not exercised for a long time suddenly engaging in high-intensity outdoor activities. As long as you stop the activity immediately and rest, and then gradually increase the intensity of outdoor exercise according to your physical condition, you will be fine.

Even for short-distance crossings, if we ignore the warning signals our bodies send during activities for a long time, chronic injuries will come uninvited and make us suffer. There are some tough guys around us who often consciously or unconsciously brag about how they can complete a route in three hours that others take a whole day to complete. As far as my experience is concerned, such friends will not be able to play outdoors for more than three years. Firstly, there will always be people who are competitive and aggressive, and "the waves behind push the waves in front, and the waves in front die on the beach"; secondly, after three years, I'm afraid he won't be able to walk anymore because of serious strain on his knees.

The knee joint is the most complex joint in the human body. It is composed of the femur, tibia, patella, and fibula. The surrounding muscles, tendons, medial and lateral collateral ligaments, anterior and posterior cruciate ligaments, and medial and lateral menisci work together to maintain its stability. If you are too active outdoors, especially running downhill very fast, the impact on the knee joint surface may cause cartilage rupture or meniscus rupture. In addition to articular cartilage rupture and meniscus rupture, common knee injuries include patellofemoral pain, patellar tendonitis, patellotibial band syndrome and bursitis, etc. - it doesn't matter if you can't remember these terms, just ask yourself if you have ever felt pain in your knee.