May 24, 2018

Cool Story - Tom

I am a C7/T1 incomplete spinal cord injury, who has lost the ability to sweat due to my injury. I am also an adaptive sports athlete who has heavily participated in numerous sports in the 13 years I have been injured. Losing the ability to sweat has negatively affected my performance while playing sports. I feel like I can compete at a high level, but only for a limited amount of time. After a short amount of time, my body becomes extremely overheated because I cannot sweat at all to help regulate my body temperature. The only thing I had ever done to help this was during time outs or breaks in the action, I would pour cold water on myself. This helped some but after several minutes I was right back where I started and feeling like I was overheating again. This usually ended in me being soaking wet by the end of a game and after the final whistle sounded I still felt like I was about to collapse from heat exhaustion.  I would usually have to take a 20-30 minute cold shower after a game or practice just to get my body temperature back down to normal (sometimes it would rise to the 103-104 degrees Fahrenheit range, that's scary!). 

I participated in a wheelchair Rugby tournament over the weekend and used the UnderCool vest in every game. I played 4 games in a 2 day period and I was amazed at how I felt after each game. Don't get me wrong, I was still tired after each game, but that feeling of overheating and heat exhaustion wasn't there. The UnderCool vest really did help regulate my body tempurature. I took my tempurature after each game and it was 98-99 range not over 100 degrees like prior to using the vest. I wasn't soaking wet because I didn't need to constantly pour water all over me to cool me and I didn't have to take any cold showers which I was pleased about as well. I cannot wait to use this vest more in games and while training (I especially look forward to training outside on hot days this summer, which is something I previously avoided at all costs)

Thank you for sharing your story Tom! 



 

ThermApparel is a small business making big waves in the heat sensitivity world by designing the first lightweight, comfortable and invisible cooling vest, UnderCool. Check us out online, on our blog, or on Facebook, X, Pinterest, LinkedIn and Instagram.