Feel sick this week from the heat? You’re not alone. Doctors at AdventHealth say they’re treating a record number of patients for heat-related illnesses.
Doctors at AdventHealth Centra Care say they saw an average of 11 patients a week in July for heat-related illnesses.
That’s more than five times as many patients who sought treatment for heat exposure or heat exhaustion at the same time last year.
Director Dr. Tim Hendrix says historic high temperatures are to blame.
"Well climate change as we can see is affecting our weather and it’s affecting our health. So as we move forward and we anticipate we're going to have longer, hotter summers, we're going to have a higher risk of people coming down with these heat-related illnesses."
Hendrix says he expects people will begin to adapt to the warmer weather by staying indoors, away from the heat.
"So we need to learn how to adapt and modify our activities throughout the summers and not just expect well it's going to cool off or I used to be able to do these things during the summer time, but we're gonna have to be aware that we're, you know, we're gonna have to change our activities because of the heat and we may not be able to do what we used to be able to do."
The average high in Orlando in July was 94.5 degrees, which is 2.5 degrees higher than July temperatures over the last three decades.
