Sauna users urged to hydrate to avoid heat stroke

Sauna users have been urged to stay hydrated after a woman suffered severe heat stroke with multi-organ failure after basking for too long in the heat.

Experts from Birmingham Heartlands Hospital described how a patient needed hospital care for 12 days after heat stroke led to a number of serious health problems including a heart attack.

Only around 10 cases of heat stroke linked to saunas have been documented.

The unnamed woman in her early 70s also had seizures, liver injury and kidney injury, among other conditions.

The woman, a daily gym goer, was found in unconscious at an indoor sauna at her local gym.

Before getting in the sauna she had been performing stretching exercises for around 45 minutes.

Paramedics found her with an extremely high core body temperature of 42C, very low blood pressure and a fast heart rate.

The woman, who had a history of type 1 diabetes and thyroid problems, was taken to the emergency department at Heartlands.

She was unresponsive and making groaning noises and had a seizure in the emergency department.

The patient was cooled with wet towels and a fan when she was in the emergency department, which saw her body temperature return to normal levels, medics said.

The woman regained consciousness two hours after returning to normal body temperature, but she was confused and drowsy for two days.

Further investigations revealed she had suffered acute kidney injury – which had resolved 48 hours after she was admitted to hospital.

On the second day of her hospital stay, doctors found she had abnormal liver function.

She was also found to have suffered a form of heart attack.

“The most likely diagnosis was likely to be classical heat stroke with multi-organ failure,” the doctors wrote in the journal BMJ Case Reports.

“To the best of our knowledge, there have been fewer than 10 previously reported cases of heat stroke secondary to sauna use,” they said, including three deaths.

Medics saw the woman in hospital 26 days after the heat stroke and found she had “returned to her baseline health status” but was still suffering from fatigue.

The patient said: “My experience has emphasised the dangers of saunas and how important it is to be fully hydrated on entering a sauna and for them to be regularly checked by staff.

“As a regular sauna user I never suffered any issues and, on reflection, I believe I had not drunk enough water.

“I am pleased to say I’m feeling well and appear to have made a full recovery.

“As a side note, considering what I have been through, I know that I am very lucky and cannot thank the medical staff enough.”