Certain medications may cause heat to be less tolerable for some | Local News

Access Family Pharmacist Jordan Morrison says medications can impact how your body handles being in the sun. 

“A lot of medications that can do it. Just different modalities that they can use that alter how well you’re going to tolerate the heat,” said Morrison. 

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, or CDC, has a full list of these medications and what they do to your body. 

“Some of them can make you sweat less. Some of them get you dehydrated. Some, if you get dehydrated because of the heat, they don’t process out of your body as well,” said Morrison. 

Alongside internally impacting your body, some medications like antibiotics can change how sensitive your skin is to UV rays. Morrison recommends either wearing sunscreen or putting on long sleeves.

“You’re going to need to drink more water when it’s 90% outside. If you notice that you’re sweating, that means that you’re losing water,” said Morrison. 

It is important to pay attention to factors that may make you more prone to heat-related illnesses. Hamilton County Emergency Management Public Information Officer Amy Maxwell says if you start to feel bad, then it is time to start treating yourself for heat exposure. 

“If you are a very healthy person and you don’t experience those types of things, and you know you’ve been outside for a period of time, then that’s probably a good sign that you’ve been exposed to the heat for a longer period of time,” said Maxwell.

There are signs you need to seek emergency care. 

“With a heat stroke too, you don’t want to try and treat that. That needs medical attention immediately,” said Maxwell. 

Heat is one of the deadliest weather hazards.

Maxwell says no one in Hamilton County has been taken by ambulance to a hospital for heat-related illness this season.