There are many diseases and medical conditions that can cause heat intolerance. Sometimes, heat not only causes a flare-up of symptoms, but it can also cause the condition to progress faster.

For people with conditions like this, it is crucial that they have an air conditioning repair service on their direct-dial phone list. Due to the health risks involved, there is assistance available for people who need help paying for air conditioning installation or repair. Here are two medical conditions that need air conditioning.   

Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia Syndrome

This is a disease that causes your blood to pool in your lower extremities when you get up from lying down or when you are exposed to a trigger. When you have postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome (POTS), your heart rate will increase as your heart adjusts to try to bring the blood back up out of your lower extremities.

This combination can cause you to get dizzy, gray or black out, have chest pain, and possibly lose consciousness. One trigger that can bring on a POTS attack is heat. In fact, many people who have been diagnosed with POTS dread the warmer months due to how horrible the heat makes them feel.

The reason for the heat intolerance is because heat causes the blood vessels to dilate, which makes it easier for the blood to pool in the lower extremities. Since this puts strain on the heart, it is crucial that people with POTS avoid being in heat, especially for prolonged periods of time.

If you need financial assistance to keep your home temperature regulated with air conditioning in the summer, contact your local county's agency on aging. They may have enough financial assistance available to help. If not, they may be able to direct you to a local air conditioning repair service that is willing to work with people who have medical conditions that require them to be in air conditioning.

Therefore, it's a good idea to have your physician give you a letter stating that you need air conditioning due to health reasons as documentation is often a requirement for these types of county agencies before they can approve and process payment to the air conditioning contractors.

Multiple Sclerosis

Multiple sclerosis is an autoimmune disease that is progressive. However Many people have heard of multiple sclerosis and how devastating it can be one the body., most people don't realize that heat can make multiple sclerosis flare up and make the progression of the disease much faster than if the body wasn't exposed to heat and subjected to heat intolerance. Each time a relapse occurs, it's more difficult for your body to return to normal or baseline.

People who have been diagnosed with multiple sclerosis should avoid being in heat as much as possible, especially since there is no cure to treatment for the irreversible damage a flare-up causes to the nerves. Other symptoms of multiple sclerosis include reduced coordination and loss of muscle control, pain, numbness, and fatigue. The best thing to do when a flare-up starts is to get into air conditioning ASAP.

It's important to recognize that these symptoms can also be related to or caused by other conditions that can be quite serious, including Ehlers Danlos syndrome and Chiari 1 malformation. However, neither of these conditions are worsened by heat intolerance.

If you are diagnosed with MS and need help with installing or repairing your air conditioning system, apply for financial assistance through your local MS Society. The financial assistance programs typically pay the air conditioning installation and/or repair services directly. Just be sure to get a detailed report of your account from the air conditioning contractor to show how much the assistance program paid and how much you may still owe.

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