July 9, 2025 • 10 mins
Dr. Jim Keany, Chief Medical Officer at Dignity Health St. Mary Medical Center in Long Beach, joins The Bill Handel Show for 'Medical News'! Dr. Keany talks with Bill about tick season being really bad this year and the bet ways to hydrate in this heat wave… some say milk is better than water.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
It's say hot Wednesday morning, July ninth, And with that
we check in with doctor Jim Keeney, chief medical officer
for Dignity Saint Mary Medical Center in Long Beach. All right, Jim,
we are now hearing that we're in the middle of
a hot spell. Heather and other news folks are talking
(00:22):
about it is going to be hot, hot, especially in
the San Frano Valley Woodland Hills one hundred and six degrees,
and we hear about people dying, but not here. We
usually hear about it in sort of the Midwest area
or the eastern seaboard. And is it fair to say
that we really don't take the heat seriously enough?
Speaker 2 (00:46):
Oh? Yeah, I mean I think people don't recognize the
risk of heat injury, over exposure to heat, dehydration, all
of those things, because I mean, we are lucky, right,
We tend to live in a more lower humidity area,
so our natural sweating process actually works. Once the humidity
gets above about seventy percent, you're not offloading any heat
(01:09):
with sweat, so all of a sudden, your body's natural
mechanism to cool off is just shut down.
Speaker 1 (01:16):
All right, And so what happens because you've described to
me the levels of heat injuries. And at one point
you actually describe which I thought was kind of scary,
your brain actually cooking in your head, I think is
the way you described it, or maybe that's the way
I described it to you. Let's talk about the different
(01:38):
levels of heat.
Speaker 2 (01:41):
Sure, and yeah, so heat we start, you know, you
start getting just that feeling like you're overheating, right, you
get a little light headed, a little dizzy. We call
that heat exhaustion, and you're just kind of you feel exhausted,
you feel light headed, like you might pass out. That's
the time where you definitely want to get out of
the sun. Get out of it. That a direct sunlight
where you're getting radiant heat from the sun, Get into
(02:05):
the shade, cool off, Drink cool fluids, cold fluids, and
maybe you know, take off some clothing if you're heavily
you know, clothed at that point and you just want
to cool off. That's a real safe time to be
able to correct the situation. If that progresses, we get
into what's called heat stroke. And heat stroke is where
you have such high temperatures, like greater than one hundred
(02:27):
and seven in your body, and that starts denaturing some
of the proteins. Right, So a protein has a certain
shape and it has the ability to kind of move
around a little bit. Think about an egg. Egg is
mostly protein, right, the egg white. When you cook it,
it turns white. You can't reverse that, you can't go
back to the gelatinous material that it was before. That's
(02:48):
called denatured, right. It's lost its natural shape of the molecule,
and that's permanent damage. So you don't want to definitely
don't want to get to that stage. And that's what
we're talking about cooking your brain. Is that essentially people
go into heat stroke it looks like a stroke to
get confused, disoriented, They don't make any sense, they may
lose consciousness, and that's a very very dangerous condition. Wow.
Speaker 1 (03:11):
And by the way, do you well. First of all,
I want to congratulate you because there many times when
you're explaining something that I have absolutely no idea what
you're talking about, and I pretend I do because I
don't want to come off like a complete moron. You
just did a fabulous job of explaining the concept of
denaturing and what happens during a heat stroke. Now do
(03:32):
you notice that are people sort of conscious going from
heat exhaustion and heat stroke. Is it one of those
things where you don't even realize is happening.
Speaker 2 (03:45):
No, I think. So there's things that can cause that
to happen, For example, being intoxicated. There's a lot of
people that will pass from heat exhaustion to heat stroke
and not really be aware that they're getting worse because
they're under the influence of some kind of drug. Also,
our drugs that will reduce your sensation of getting into
that trouble, and they are even drugs that will enhance
(04:08):
that so that you know that you will actually go
into heat exhaustion heat stroke faster. So if you're especially
elderly people, their sense of being overheated isn't as acute
as younger people. So you leave an older person in
the sun and they you know, they may overheat and
not necessarily complain too much, and all of a sudden
they're in heat stroke. So if you're on a lot
(04:30):
of different medications, you know, definitely check with your pharmacists.
The list is too long to go through, but you know,
you check with your pharmacists and say, are do any
of these medications expose me to increase risk for heat
exhaustion and and then be especially careful. But you know,
either way, even if you're not on those medicines, you
definitely want to be careful and stay cool and stay hydrated.
(04:51):
That's the one key is, you know. Pre hydration, both
for exercise and for just going out in the sun
is really important. It makes you feel better while you're
doing it to improve your performance overall, and that reduces
your risk.
Speaker 1 (05:04):
And you don't stop peeing, which is always fun. We're
gonna come back, and yeah, I know he Jim likes
to pee. We've talked about this before. He's a big pier.
All right, Okay, ticks season is here, and as you missed,
my great line about there's an uptick and ticks season.
Just love that. And usually, or at least I don't
(05:24):
think of ticks in southern California ticks to me. Or
you go into the Northeast and you're hiking, I don't
understand what even that is. But you're hiking along trails
and the woods and the hills, and all of a
sudden you're being bitten by teaks all over the place,
ticks all over the place. Number one, are they here?
Speaker 2 (05:43):
Number two?
Speaker 1 (05:44):
How dangerous are they? And how do you deal with them?
Speaker 2 (05:50):
So ticks are definitely here, and you know in the
in these little even these little hiking hills around you know,
San Clementy or Orange Care and in Los Angeles there
are ticks galore. I mean they're everywhere. So you get
into that like tall grass, those those areas where they
have those big bushy or you know those big yellow flowers.
(06:14):
I think they're called Spanish broom or something like that,
those always have tons of ticks in there because when
those are blooming, it means that there was a lot
of rainfall and it's really moist on the ground, and
the ticks like that moist environment. They love dead wood.
So people who like you're taking a break while you're
hiking and you sit on a log, well you just
probably got covered with ticks because if that log is
(06:36):
wet at all, that's one of their favorite places to
hang out. So we definitely see it. We definitely see
people get you know, some of the diseases associated with
tick bites, like lime disease, you can get that here
in California. And so you know what do you do? Well?
Number one is you try and avoid you know, going
(06:58):
on trails that are like off trail. If you're like
right on the trail, chances are much lower. They're not
going to jump all the way from the side of
the trail onto you. But if you're walking through brush
and it's brushing against your body, then that's right when
they grab onto you. If you're wearing you know, high stocks,
you can treat your clothing with permethrone, which is a
spray that's repellent. And you know, just basically as soon
(07:23):
as you're done walking or hiking, you just do a
body check and make sure you don't have any ticks,
take a shower, look at everything, you know, make it
a fun part of the post hike experience. Check each
other out. And then now what do you do if
you find a tick? Well, you want to remove it immediately.
A lot of people are just like freaked out about it,
they're scared about it, and then they want to go
(07:44):
to the emergency room or something to get a tick removed.
I can tell you that is going to be a
waste of your three to four hours. You just grab
a pair of tweezers, you grab it gently, you know,
firmly enough to grab it, and you just slowly tug
on it, and you'll see it kind of pull up
the skin a little bit, and you just let you
just stay like that for a while and the thing
(08:05):
will eventually kind of release on its own. You don't
want to try and rip it out because a lot
of times then the head rips off the body and
now that's stuck in there, it's a little harder to
get out. And if you're getting it out within the
first hour or two of it being on there, it's
a lot easier.
Speaker 1 (08:20):
Hey, do you prophylactically give antibiotics some kind of medication
because of the danger of wine disease. For example, once
you've been bitten by a tick.
Speaker 2 (08:32):
Our risk is lower. The thought is, if it's attached
just for you know, less than a few hours, the
risk is extremely low, even if the tick did have
you know, any kind of lime disease with it. But
you can number one, if it's greater than twenty four hours,
we do prophylactically treat with doxy cycling, which does protect
(08:53):
against it. But going back to the previous segment, doxy
cycling and sensitizes you to the sun, so then you
can't go out in the sun. Or you'll get a sunburn.
But you can also you know, get the tick itself
if you if you hold on to it, bring it
to your doctor. They can send the lab and get
it tested for lime disease you yourself. I mean, the
testing doesn't turn positive for like three to four weeks,
(09:15):
So if you get bit by a tick, no point
in rushing in to get a lime test. You know
that's not going to help. But if you have the
tick itself, we could send that to the lab and
get it tested.
Speaker 1 (09:25):
It's the bottom line. If you go hiking, you're going
to die, which is why I'm a big fan of
not doing it. And lime disease is no fun, is it.
I mean, it is pretty serious when you get it.
Speaker 2 (09:39):
Yeah, it is no fun at all, and it can
be current turned chronic and it really causes body wide issues.
So definitely something you want to try and avoid.
Speaker 1 (09:48):
All right, Jim, Thanks, we'll talk again. I talked to
Jim over the weekend. I had some medical issues with
Lindsay and Jim being really really good about it. And
thank you. And by the way, for those of you
that want free medical advice, just contact KFI and I'll
be more than happy. To give you Jim's cell number. Jim,
thank you all right.
Speaker 2 (10:08):
Thanks Bill,
It's say hot Wednesday morning, July ninth, And with that
we check in with doctor Jim Keeney, chief medical officer
for Dignity Saint Mary Medical Center in Long Beach. All right, Jim,
we are now hearing that we're in the middle of
a hot spell. Heather and other news folks are talking
(00:22):
about it is going to be hot, hot, especially in
the San Frano Valley Woodland Hills one hundred and six degrees,
and we hear about people dying, but not here. We
usually hear about it in sort of the Midwest area
or the eastern seaboard. And is it fair to say
that we really don't take the heat seriously enough?
Speaker 2 (00:46):
Oh? Yeah, I mean I think people don't recognize the
risk of heat injury, over exposure to heat, dehydration, all
of those things, because I mean, we are lucky, right,
We tend to live in a more lower humidity area,
so our natural sweating process actually works. Once the humidity
gets above about seventy percent, you're not offloading any heat
(01:09):
with sweat, so all of a sudden, your body's natural
mechanism to cool off is just shut down.
Speaker 1 (01:16):
All right, And so what happens because you've described to
me the levels of heat injuries. And at one point
you actually describe which I thought was kind of scary,
your brain actually cooking in your head, I think is
the way you described it, or maybe that's the way
I described it to you. Let's talk about the different
(01:38):
levels of heat.
Speaker 2 (01:41):
Sure, and yeah, so heat we start, you know, you
start getting just that feeling like you're overheating, right, you
get a little light headed, a little dizzy. We call
that heat exhaustion, and you're just kind of you feel exhausted,
you feel light headed, like you might pass out. That's
the time where you definitely want to get out of
the sun. Get out of it. That a direct sunlight
where you're getting radiant heat from the sun, Get into
(02:05):
the shade, cool off, Drink cool fluids, cold fluids, and
maybe you know, take off some clothing if you're heavily
you know, clothed at that point and you just want
to cool off. That's a real safe time to be
able to correct the situation. If that progresses, we get
into what's called heat stroke. And heat stroke is where
you have such high temperatures, like greater than one hundred
(02:27):
and seven in your body, and that starts denaturing some
of the proteins. Right, So a protein has a certain
shape and it has the ability to kind of move
around a little bit. Think about an egg. Egg is
mostly protein, right, the egg white. When you cook it,
it turns white. You can't reverse that, you can't go
back to the gelatinous material that it was before. That's
(02:48):
called denatured, right. It's lost its natural shape of the molecule,
and that's permanent damage. So you don't want to definitely
don't want to get to that stage. And that's what
we're talking about cooking your brain. Is that essentially people
go into heat stroke it looks like a stroke to
get confused, disoriented, They don't make any sense, they may
lose consciousness, and that's a very very dangerous condition. Wow.
Speaker 1 (03:11):
And by the way, do you well. First of all,
I want to congratulate you because there many times when
you're explaining something that I have absolutely no idea what
you're talking about, and I pretend I do because I
don't want to come off like a complete moron. You
just did a fabulous job of explaining the concept of
denaturing and what happens during a heat stroke. Now do
(03:32):
you notice that are people sort of conscious going from
heat exhaustion and heat stroke. Is it one of those
things where you don't even realize is happening.
Speaker 2 (03:45):
No, I think. So there's things that can cause that
to happen, For example, being intoxicated. There's a lot of
people that will pass from heat exhaustion to heat stroke
and not really be aware that they're getting worse because
they're under the influence of some kind of drug. Also,
our drugs that will reduce your sensation of getting into
that trouble, and they are even drugs that will enhance
(04:08):
that so that you know that you will actually go
into heat exhaustion heat stroke faster. So if you're especially
elderly people, their sense of being overheated isn't as acute
as younger people. So you leave an older person in
the sun and they you know, they may overheat and
not necessarily complain too much, and all of a sudden
they're in heat stroke. So if you're on a lot
(04:30):
of different medications, you know, definitely check with your pharmacists.
The list is too long to go through, but you know,
you check with your pharmacists and say, are do any
of these medications expose me to increase risk for heat
exhaustion and and then be especially careful. But you know,
either way, even if you're not on those medicines, you
definitely want to be careful and stay cool and stay hydrated.
(04:51):
That's the one key is, you know. Pre hydration, both
for exercise and for just going out in the sun
is really important. It makes you feel better while you're
doing it to improve your performance overall, and that reduces
your risk.
Speaker 1 (05:04):
And you don't stop peeing, which is always fun. We're
gonna come back, and yeah, I know he Jim likes
to pee. We've talked about this before. He's a big pier.
All right, Okay, ticks season is here, and as you missed,
my great line about there's an uptick and ticks season.
Just love that. And usually, or at least I don't
(05:24):
think of ticks in southern California ticks to me. Or
you go into the Northeast and you're hiking, I don't
understand what even that is. But you're hiking along trails
and the woods and the hills, and all of a
sudden you're being bitten by teaks all over the place,
ticks all over the place. Number one, are they here?
Speaker 2 (05:43):
Number two?
Speaker 1 (05:44):
How dangerous are they? And how do you deal with them?
Speaker 2 (05:50):
So ticks are definitely here, and you know in the
in these little even these little hiking hills around you know,
San Clementy or Orange Care and in Los Angeles there
are ticks galore. I mean they're everywhere. So you get
into that like tall grass, those those areas where they
have those big bushy or you know those big yellow flowers.
(06:14):
I think they're called Spanish broom or something like that,
those always have tons of ticks in there because when
those are blooming, it means that there was a lot
of rainfall and it's really moist on the ground, and
the ticks like that moist environment. They love dead wood.
So people who like you're taking a break while you're
hiking and you sit on a log, well you just
probably got covered with ticks because if that log is
(06:36):
wet at all, that's one of their favorite places to
hang out. So we definitely see it. We definitely see
people get you know, some of the diseases associated with
tick bites, like lime disease, you can get that here
in California. And so you know what do you do? Well?
Number one is you try and avoid you know, going
(06:58):
on trails that are like off trail. If you're like
right on the trail, chances are much lower. They're not
going to jump all the way from the side of
the trail onto you. But if you're walking through brush
and it's brushing against your body, then that's right when
they grab onto you. If you're wearing you know, high stocks,
you can treat your clothing with permethrone, which is a
spray that's repellent. And you know, just basically as soon
(07:23):
as you're done walking or hiking, you just do a
body check and make sure you don't have any ticks,
take a shower, look at everything, you know, make it
a fun part of the post hike experience. Check each
other out. And then now what do you do if
you find a tick? Well, you want to remove it immediately.
A lot of people are just like freaked out about it,
they're scared about it, and then they want to go
(07:44):
to the emergency room or something to get a tick removed.
I can tell you that is going to be a
waste of your three to four hours. You just grab
a pair of tweezers, you grab it gently, you know,
firmly enough to grab it, and you just slowly tug
on it, and you'll see it kind of pull up
the skin a little bit, and you just let you
just stay like that for a while and the thing
(08:05):
will eventually kind of release on its own. You don't
want to try and rip it out because a lot
of times then the head rips off the body and
now that's stuck in there, it's a little harder to
get out. And if you're getting it out within the
first hour or two of it being on there, it's
a lot easier.
Speaker 1 (08:20):
Hey, do you prophylactically give antibiotics some kind of medication
because of the danger of wine disease. For example, once
you've been bitten by a tick.
Speaker 2 (08:32):
Our risk is lower. The thought is, if it's attached
just for you know, less than a few hours, the
risk is extremely low, even if the tick did have
you know, any kind of lime disease with it. But
you can number one, if it's greater than twenty four hours,
we do prophylactically treat with doxy cycling, which does protect
(08:53):
against it. But going back to the previous segment, doxy
cycling and sensitizes you to the sun, so then you
can't go out in the sun. Or you'll get a sunburn.
But you can also you know, get the tick itself
if you if you hold on to it, bring it
to your doctor. They can send the lab and get
it tested for lime disease you yourself. I mean, the
testing doesn't turn positive for like three to four weeks,
(09:15):
So if you get bit by a tick, no point
in rushing in to get a lime test. You know
that's not going to help. But if you have the
tick itself, we could send that to the lab and
get it tested.
Speaker 1 (09:25):
It's the bottom line. If you go hiking, you're going
to die, which is why I'm a big fan of
not doing it. And lime disease is no fun, is it.
I mean, it is pretty serious when you get it.
Speaker 2 (09:39):
Yeah, it is no fun at all, and it can
be current turned chronic and it really causes body wide issues.
So definitely something you want to try and avoid.
Speaker 1 (09:48):
All right, Jim, Thanks, we'll talk again. I talked to
Jim over the weekend. I had some medical issues with
Lindsay and Jim being really really good about it. And
thank you. And by the way, for those of you
that want free medical advice, just contact KFI and I'll
be more than happy. To give you Jim's cell number. Jim,
thank you all right.
Speaker 2 (10:08):
Thanks Bill,
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