Temperature regulation issues?

[Guest guest]

Hi everyone,

My daughter Ariana is 10 and has a 22mm ACM 1 herniation. Today for

the first time ever that I can recall, she had an episode of what

appeared to be extreme overheating (she has probably as close to zero

body fat as a person can have, so if anything she's usually cold).

Now it's mid-November, obviously, and even though we're having

unusually warmer than normal temps in California for the past few

days, the outside temp where she was playing was a mild 73 degrees.

She was in khaki pants and a thin short-sleeved shirt. She was at a

playground playing with her siblings and a few friends. She reported

that she was " running around playing but not as hard as a lot of

times " . Ariana came in and said she needed to lay down and was solid

beet red. She was sweating some but not profusely. She drank some

water and went and laid down and started feeling better, but it took

about an hour for her to stop feeling hot and for her color to return

to normal!

We were at a friends' house during all of this, and I didn't want them

to think I was strange, and we were leaving anyway, so I didn't take

her temperature. But she isn't sick and hasn't been running fever.

After the initial hour or so she seemed totally normal; possibly a

little run-down. Tonight at bedtime she voiced concern about playing

at school and wondered if she should play at recess (she is very

bright and also very aware of her body). She says this was " awful "

and doesn't want it to happen again. I didn't say it out loud but was

thinking " great, one more thing to deal with " . Normally at recess

she's very active unless she's feeling dizzy. Her new favorite thing

to do is basketball. That's how she knows that her level of activity

today and the weather conditions should not have elicited this kind of

body response.

So I guess my question is whether or not this is something that should

be cause for concern. If so, is it only if it continues to happen, or

is this one episode enough to mention to her doctors? As most of you

know, her doctors refuse to treat her Chiari seriously (and yes, I

know we need to go elsewhere; it has always been an insurance issue).

I can just hear them laughing if I tell them she got overheated

playing. They'd say that because she can run and play enough to get

that hot it proves she doesn't have a problem!...

Thanks,

Beth in sunny CA