Word of Caution for Rookie Drivers

PPH_over_9000

Well-Known Member
(this is a bit long-winded with a lot of numbers. my apologies if it's too much to read, but there is a tl;dr at the bottom)

I'm a rookie myself (less than two years driving) so please don't take this as condescending. This is my second summer and I've suffered heat exhaustion twice in the past three weeks. The first time I was pulled from the route and had about a week off to replenish/recover. Felt fine after a week, went back to work, made it three days before it happened again (I finished the route that day but had to call out the next.) So I let my team know, went to get bloodwork done to figure out what I'm missing, and next thing you know the doctor's saying I need an ambulance to transport me to an ER due to extremely low sodium content.

I drink 10-14 16oz bottles of water a day, at least 56oz of sugar-free Gatorade, and I keep a liter of Pedialyte in my cooler at all times to sip on as needed. Where I've been lacking is my diet, so I also take 3 supplements a day: magnesium, potassium gluconate, and dicalcium phosphate. Thing is, dealing with heat indexes of 100F-115F (about 80% humidity), it just wasn't enough.

This job is absolutely easy in a sense. You follow the methods, deliver the boxes, get the job done. Dealing with the elements can be a dance with the devil, though, and in these hot summer months you really need to take care of yourselves and be aware of any negative changes in your body/the way you're feeling so that you don't end up in the same position I've come to find myself in.

Proper hydration isn't just about slamming fluids and taking your lunch break when you're sweating for 10-12hrs in this summer heat. You've got to ensure that your diet is also providing you with more than just energy and a feeling of fullness, even when taking supplemental minerals and electrolytes. You can't let yourself get stuck in the back of the truck looking for that one package that you were just told was scanned and loaded on-car. Keep an eye out for shady areas when pulling up to a delivery location-- even if you've gotta walk an extra 20ft, do what you can to park out of direct sunlight and make sure to occasionally open the bulkhead and backdoors to let some of that oven-worthy heat escape back out into the wild. Make mental notes of places where you could take a break in an air-conditioned environment, and for Christ's sake use them to cool down and prevent yourself from starting to develop any kind of heat illness.

I know they pound this stuff into us at PCMs, and I also know that once you're on-car you may just want to get the day over with as quickly as you can (especially the newer drivers.) It's easy to tell yourself you just need to weather the storm for one more hour, or you'll get that next bottle of water after your next stop, or you'll wait until you're in a certain area to take all or part of your lunch break. Don't do that. When the thought first hits you that you need water, get water. Same with food, finding a place to cool-down, all of that. Don't postpone it and, if anything, try to make it a habit to take action before you have those thoughts.

I hope everybody stays safe and healthy out there because, depending on where you work, that can be much easier said than done.


tl;dr: Don't be dumb. Take care of yourself during these summer months.


*edited a few times to make for a cleaner read. I always proofread after I hit post, lol. Like an idiot
 
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Red Headed Stranger

Well-Known Member
You might find it helpful to drink 1/2 cup tonic water mixed with gatorade at bedtime. This will really help your muscles and completely takes away any muscle cramping as well. Good luck to you! I hope they get your health issues resolved.
 

Last One In

Well-Known Member
We have a driver that just drinks Mountain Dew all day lol no idea how he survives in 100+ degree but he does
Sounds like a guy I used to work with. Came to work every morning with a plastic bag from the gas station with his daily "lunch" of 6 Mountain Dew.

I, too, take potassium tablets daily. If I don't, I wake up in the middle of the night with calf cramps. Have you ever tried coconut water? I find it gives me minerals I sweat out. I don't like coconut, but it is refreshing on a hot day.
 

PPH_over_9000

Well-Known Member
Hopefully you filed an injury report.

Everything's been taken care of properly, yeah. Management team's not really happy with me but I haven't been branded a pariah.... yet. That shoe might drop when I return, though. The phone calls with managers and directors I'd never known existed prior to this incident was definitely not a fun experience.


We have a driver that just drinks Mountain Dew all day lol no idea how he survives in 100+ degree but he does

Got a couple of those in my building, too, and they're all huge guys. I'm not. I'm one of the shortest drivers in my center. Some of my coworkers literally weigh twice as much as I do, and I think that alone is a huge problem when it comes to staying properly hydrated and having a decent reserve of minerals and water in your body. I think smaller people-- without a significant change in diet-- can run out of those damn electrolytes much more quickly because we inherently don't eat as much.

That's not really an educated opinion, though, just something I suspect.
 
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Wally

BrownCafe Innovator & King of Puns
(this is a bit long-winded with a lot of numbers. my apologies if it's too much to read, but there is a tl;dr at the bottom)

I'm a rookie myself (less than two years driving) so please don't take this as condescending. This is my second summer and I've suffered heat exhaustion twice in the past three weeks. The first time I was pulled from the route and had about a week off to replenish/recover. Felt fine after a week, went back to work, made it three days before it happened again (I finished the route that day but had to call out the next.) So I let my team know, went to get bloodwork done to figure out what I'm missing, and next thing you know the doctor's saying I need an ambulance to transport me to an ER due to extremely low sodium content.

I drink 10-14 16oz bottles of water a day, at least 56oz of sugar-free Gatorade, and I keep a liter of Pedialyte in my cooler at all times to sip on as needed. Where I've been lacking is my diet, so I also take 3 supplements a day: magnesium, potassium gluconate, and dicalcium phosphate. Thing is, dealing with heat indexes of 100F-115F (about 80% humidity), it just wasn't enough.

This job is absolutely easy in a sense. You follow the methods, deliver the boxes, get the job done. Dealing with the elements can be a dance with the devil, though, and in these hot summer months you really need to take care of yourselves and be aware of any negative changes in your body/the way you're feeling so that you don't end up in the same position I've come to find myself in.

Proper hydration isn't just about slamming fluids and taking your lunch break when you're sweating for 10-12hrs in this summer heat. You've got to ensure that your diet is also providing you with more than just energy and a feeling of fullness, even when taking supplemental minerals and electrolytes. You can't let yourself get stuck in the back of the truck looking for that one package that you were just told was scanned and loaded on-car. Keep an eye out for shady areas when pulling up to a delivery location-- even if you've gotta walk an extra 20ft, do what you can to park out of direct sunlight and make sure to occasionally open the bulkhead and backdoors to let some of that oven-worthy heat escape back out into the wild. Make mental notes of places where you could take a break in an air-conditioned environment, and for Christ's sake use them to cool down and prevent yourself from starting to develop any kind of heat illness.

I know they pound this stuff into us at PCMs, and I also know that once you're on-car you may just want to get the day over with as quickly as you can (especially the newer drivers.) It's easy to tell yourself you just need to weather the storm for one more hour, or you'll get that next bottle of water after your next stop, or you'll wait until you're in a certain area to take all or part of your lunch break. Don't do that. When the thought first hits you that you need water, get water. Same with food, finding a place to cool-down, all of that. Don't postpone it and, if anything, try to make it a habit to take action before you have those thoughts.

I hope everybody stays safe and healthy out there because, depending on where you work, that can be much easier said than done.


tl;dr: Don't be dumb. Take care of yourself during these summer months.


*edited a few times to make for a cleaner read. I always proofread after I hit post, lol. Like an idiot
What's up with all the heat exhaustion? Stop the nonsense.
 

PPH_over_9000

Well-Known Member
What's up with all the heat exhaustion? Stop the nonsense.

The first time? Result of improper nutrition and being dumb enough to stay in the back of the truck looking for pieces that were showed as scanned on-car but just weren't there.

The second time? I don't think I properly recovered/replenished from the first before being thrown right back in the :censored2:. I should've seen a doctor, gotten evaluated and been cleared to return. Instead I relied on my own determination of how I was feeling. But that second time I didn't even hit the heat cramp stage, it was just an overall sense of everything being wrong with my body. I felt on the verge of another incident, so I went to get bloodwork to find out what exactly I was missing as I've been taking supplements and absolutely staying hydrated since the first incident. The doctor deemed me an emergency and recommended an ambulance to be treated at the ER for extremely low sodium and chloride levels. Sodium chloride. Table salt, man. The one thing I thought I got too much of through my diet.

End of the day, though? I might just not be built for this. I don't wanna say that but the possibility's there. Summer's a mother friend*er in those trucks, I much prefer the dead of winter when it's 15F-20F to these 95F-100F degree days. idk how you people on the West and in the deep South manage this job. It also doesn't help when you're on a 200+ stop route in a 600, though.
 
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tramtwo

Well-Known Member
LMNT and the occasional coconut water. No one in my center sweats anywhere close to what I do. Low sodium is the issue most of the time with heat exhaustion. Gatorade is garbage in all forms.

BTW I'm 6'2 265. 10-hour shift in the middle of the summertime will take me 20 to 25, yes 25 bottles of water in order to stay properly hydrated. The proper amount of hydration, for moderate physical activity in the heat, is your body weight divided by 30 needs to be consumed in ounces every 20 minutes!

Edit: I suck at spelling sentence structure and grammar. :)
 
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(this is a bit long-winded with a lot of numbers. my apologies if it's too much to read, but there is a tl;dr at the bottom)

I'm a rookie myself (less than two years driving) so please don't take this as condescending. This is my second summer and I've suffered heat exhaustion twice in the past three weeks. The first time I was pulled from the route and had about a week off to replenish/recover. Felt fine after a week, went back to work, made it three days before it happened again (I finished the route that day but had to call out the next.) So I let my team know, went to get bloodwork done to figure out what I'm missing, and next thing you know the doctor's saying I need an ambulance to transport me to an ER due to extremely low sodium content.

I drink 10-14 16oz bottles of water a day, at least 56oz of sugar-free Gatorade, and I keep a liter of Pedialyte in my cooler at all times to sip on as needed. Where I've been lacking is my diet, so I also take 3 supplements a day: magnesium, potassium gluconate, and dicalcium phosphate. Thing is, dealing with heat indexes of 100F-115F (about 80% humidity), it just wasn't enough.

This job is absolutely easy in a sense. You follow the methods, deliver the boxes, get the job done. Dealing with the elements can be a dance with the devil, though, and in these hot summer months you really need to take care of yourselves and be aware of any negative changes in your body/the way you're feeling so that you don't end up in the same position I've come to find myself in.

Proper hydration isn't just about slamming fluids and taking your lunch break when you're sweating for 10-12hrs in this summer heat. You've got to ensure that your diet is also providing you with more than just energy and a feeling of fullness, even when taking supplemental minerals and electrolytes. You can't let yourself get stuck in the back of the truck looking for that one package that you were just told was scanned and loaded on-car. Keep an eye out for shady areas when pulling up to a delivery location-- even if you've gotta walk an extra 20ft, do what you can to park out of direct sunlight and make sure to occasionally open the bulkhead and backdoors to let some of that oven-worthy heat escape back out into the wild. Make mental notes of places where you could take a break in an air-conditioned environment, and for Christ's sake use them to cool down and prevent yourself from starting to develop any kind of heat illness.

I know they pound this stuff into us at PCMs, and I also know that once you're on-car you may just want to get the day over with as quickly as you can (especially the newer drivers.) It's easy to tell yourself you just need to weather the storm for one more hour, or you'll get that next bottle of water after your next stop, or you'll wait until you're in a certain area to take all or part of your lunch break. Don't do that. When the thought first hits you that you need water, get water. Same with food, finding a place to cool-down, all of that. Don't postpone it and, if anything, try to make it a habit to take action before you have those thoughts.

I hope everybody stays safe and healthy out there because, depending on where you work, that can be much easier said than done.


tl;dr: Don't be dumb. Take care of yourself during these summer months.


*edited a few times to make for a cleaner read. I always proofread after I hit post, lol. Like an idiot
Jesus things are all snowflakes.
Coffee in the morning Pepsi for lunch and beer after work I'm ready to go day after day

And who the hell drinks sugar-free Gatorade that smile* is nastyAnd who the hell drinks sugar-free Gatorade that smile* is nasty
 

Made brown

Well-Known Member
I remember having an iv consisting of saline among other things. I remember still being thirsty. Im guessing the iv for hydration doesn't replace drinking water. I hope you the best.
 

PPH_over_9000

Well-Known Member
And who the hell drinks sugar-free Gatorade that smile* is nastyAnd who the hell drinks sugar-free Gatorade that smile* is nasty

Snowflake for falling out in the heat? Ya know what, friend* it, I'll wear that badge. It's not like I'm bragging by posting this, this whole situation was humiliating. Every step of the way I was telling myself not to go to the doctor, but it turned out that that was the right decision so... yeah. friend* it.
 

burrheadd

KING Of GIFS
The first time? Result of improper nutrition and being dumb enough to stay in the back of the truck looking for pieces that were showed as scanned on-car but just weren't there.

The second time? I don't think I properly recovered/replenished from the first before being thrown right back in the *. I should've seen a doctor, gotten evaluated and been cleared to return. Instead I relied on my own determination of how I was feeling. But that second time I didn't even hit the heat cramp stage, it was just an overall sense of everything being wrong with my body. I felt on the verge of another incident, so I went to get bloodwork to find out what exactly I was missing as I've been taking supplements and absolutely staying hydrated since the first incident. The doctor deemed me an emergency and recommended an ambulance to be treated at the ER for extremely low sodium and chloride levels. Sodium chloride. Table salt, man. The one thing I thought I got too much of through my diet.

End of the day, though? I might just not be built for this. I don't wanna say that but the possibility's there. Summer's a mother friend*er in those trucks, I much prefer the dead of winter when it's 15F-20F to these 95F-100F degree days. idk how you people on the West and in the deep South manage this job. It also doesn't help when you're on a 200+ stop route in a 600, though.
I got heat exhaustion back in 98 or 99 also broke a kidney stone loose at the same time
Dr told me I’d be susceptible to heat related illness the rest of my life to this day I try and stay hydrated
Kidney stones are no friend* in joke
 
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