This thread is among the vanished (I was away for a few days and didn’t know about the “lost weekend”). So anyway… re-posting form earlier today:
When camping in the heat and humidity of summer, I’m prone to “prickly heat” (aka “miliara”), which is sort of a heat rash. It’s caused when sweat gets traped in/against your skin. So basically lying in a sleeping bag or carrying a pack all day will get me.
So far, I’ve been using a cotton liner in my sleeping bag t help control moisture and it helps. I’ve read online that drinking nettle tea and taking anti-histamines ahead of time and during the trip can help with prevention.
Anyone else got any effective tips 'n tricks for preventing and/or dealing with pricky heat?
I would strongly recommend either corn starch or another non-talc powder in areas where you’ll chafe (i.e., between butt cheeks particularly). Body glide also works really well along seams if you’ll be hiking a lot, but it’s mostly for chafing, not heat rash, and it can be more of a sealant than anything else, so it might actually exacerbate heat rash if it’s already formed. Also, make sure your clothing is fairly loose and doesn’t stick places - you know, sometimes shorts will ride up between your thighs.
This is pretty good timing - I got to see the results of a nasty heat rash this weekend when my toddler got one over most of his body. Since we’d been to Bombay without any heat rash issues, we wrongly assumed he’d be ok in humid midwest weather. Not so.
Have a great time camping, and good luck keeping the heat rash at bay! If you do get it, rinsing down with cool or lukewarm water and letting it air dry on affected areas can really reduce redness, as can the aforementioned corn starch. That stuff is awesome!
Oh Boy - stay away from cotton…It will not prevent prickly heat. Cotton is a great absorber, but terrible at wicking the persperation from your skin. Cotton garments tend ot get full of sweat and then begin to have the opposite effect of what you want. Check out Capilene shirts…or wool. That will help you tremendously. [tags aren’t working…so I posted the whole link.] http://www.patagonia.com/web/us/product/shop/shop_landing.jsp?OPTION=PBL_LANDING
The weird thing is that I don’t tend to get the reash in the usual places. :: ahem:: For guys it can often be around “the boys”. My clothes don’t seem to be as much of a problem as my sleeping bag. The boys stay dry enough that they’re unaffected and I’ve never had chaffing issues.
I get it on the rash on the side I sleep on and when it strikes, it’s particularly bad on the main contact points where most of my body weight rests. The cotton sleeping bag liner helps quite a bit. The water resistant lining that’s in most sleeping bags really used to trap moisture between me and my skin. Now at least the cotton liner is just getting damp and I can dry it during the day. I’d prefer some kind of liner that actually wicked the moisture away, but haven’t found anything that fancy.
I’ll be glad to try several different suggestions. Several relatives on my dad’s side get rashes all over thie upper bodies just from being outside on hmid summer days. I’m not nearly as bad as them, it’s just camping that gets me, probably because it’s so hard to avoid sleeping in slightly damp conditions.
Not cotton garments, I use a cotton liner in my sleeping bag. Most of my base layers are high-end wicking fabrics that keep me dry, and most of my outer layers are quick-dry.
My big problem is sleeping. I’ve tried different sleeping bags, but most are still lined with nylon materials. That stuff repels water to a degree, so the sweat has no place to go, except back into my skin. So far, the cotton liner of the bag has made a huge difference in preventing the prickly heat. The cotton liner works far better than just the bag precisely because it does absorb the sweat. Better the cotton absorb the sweat than my body. I dry it in the sun during the day.
So far, using the liner has meant I can last about three nights before I start to get a rash. I used to get one the very first morning.
In that case, maybe you should sleep in loose cotton clothes, too, or minimize the amount of clothing you wear when you sleep (as much as you can - if you’re sleeping in the open, you probably wouldn’t want to do that thanks to the bugs).
Also, given how heavy sleeping bags can be for summer sleeping, maybe you could just cover your bag with a cotton cloth and sleep on top or spread it open or turn it inside out to take advantage of the liner but avoid the heat of being covered? You don’t necessarily have to sleep in the bag. That’s what I used to do when camping in really humid areas. Sleeping inside a bag, however light, was just too much.
Do you actually need a sleeping bag? When we camp in hot weather, we simply put a cotton sheet directly on top of the ground pad, with another to cover up with as needed. Seems to me if you’re warm enough to sweat in your bedding, you’ve got too much bedding.
I used to get prickly heat all over my shoulders and chest whenever it got hot and humid until I started using Anti Monkey Butt Powder. It’s specifically to prevent monkey butt, but I found it works wonders in preventing prickly heat.
How did you use it for your shoulders and chest? Do you just dust yourself with it or only sprinkle it in your clothes? Does it ever get pasty or anything? (I’ve had messy experiences with regular talc.)
My sister used to get prickly heat just going outside on hot, humid days. Mostly on her arms and back of her legs, behind her knees. But she outgrew it post-adolescence. I’ve never had a problem with chaffing and aside from camping, when I get prickly heat, there doesn’t seem to be any connection to my activity. (For example, I’ve never had problems on extended bike tours.)
So the best guess is that the perpetual dampness associaed with camping is what eventually gets to me.
I put it directly on my skin from neck to mid-torso every evening after I shower and before any strenuous activity when it’s hot or humid. It goes on very smooth and feels a bit silky. It doesn’t get pasty or end up like cake batter at all.
This summer was the first time in years that I was able to wear sleeveless tops. The prickly heat had always looked so disgusting that I was too embarrassed to show any skin in public.
I had always attributed my prickly heat to sweating, mostly during sleep. My dermatologist suggested that I was allergic to my own sweat. He tried treating it with steroids and antihistamines, but nothing really worked. His final advice was “don’t sweat”. Yeah, that’s practical :rolleyes: . I tried every self-help remedy I could find, every powder, plain corn starch, no soaps or skin products with oil, etc.