Hiking can be fun, exciting and appealing but there will be the inevitable injury along the way. No matter how many precautions you take or how careful you take a step, you will get injured. In some cases, it is nothing more than a blister or little paper cut but you still need to know how to deal with these as well as the more serious injuries.
No one wants to have a run-in with an insect or some nasty bugs but it will happen, especially when hiking through forest areas. To help treat the injury, you need to stop, clean the wound by using an anti-septic cream to cleanse the bites. Spray on an anti-itch cream and don’t scratch or touch the bites no matter what, you don’t want to make them worse. To avoid bites in the future, use bug spray.
Bee stings can be very serious especially if you aren’t aware of your allergic. If you have had allergic reactions to stings in the past, you must carry your allergic medicine whatever that may be. However, for regular stings, your first course of action would be to remove the stinger. Next, use a cold-compress or some ice and apply to the area which was stung. Take pain killers if you feel some discomfort and add some antihistamines to the area.
Dealing With Scrapes and Cuts
Cuts and scrapes are the most common injuries for hikers but they are also very easy to deal with. In most cases, they are pretty minor and can be dealt with very easy. First of all, add pressure to the area which is bleeding, if there is any blood; and once the blood has stopped, cleanse the wound carefully. This can be easily done with good clean water and after the wound has been cleansed, add some cream to sooth the cut or scrape. If necessary, use a plaster or bandage to patch up the area.
If the cut is deep, stitches may be required and you have to get to hospital quickly. Until you reach hospital, you must apply pressure to the area and do what you can to reduce the amount of blood loss.
Dehydration might technically not be an injury of sorts but it can be a common ailment hikers come across very often. Spotting the signs of dehydration can be very easy; if you find yourself using the bathroom less, sometimes, not for hours at a time, you may be dehydrated. You must continue to drink water and rehydrate the body.
Don’t just take a sip every so often when hiking or when your throat feels dry, drink like a fish! Remember, you lose fluids as you hike since it’s a form of exercise and you must keep your body hydrated. When you find yourself dehydrated, you need to rest up and take it easy for a little while until you properly rehydrate.
Dealing with Sprains
When you have a sprain, you need to first stop and rest. Resting for as long as possible is crucial because you can’t keep walking on a sprain as you will make it worse and be in a considerable amount of pain.
Apply ice to the sprain for a good ten to fifteen minutes; no longer. Next, you need to create a brace to support the sprain and for arm sprains, keep the arm elevated. If you really have to walk, lean on a fellow hiker for support.
Sunburn can be very uncomfortable and unpleasant but there is no real quick solution to fix this. You need to use some after sun protection, apply some cold compresses to the worst affected areas and use pain killers to stop the pain. You can’t really do much apart from leaving the sunburn to heal and this can take a lot of time to do. However, when blistering starts, don’t pick them because you could get infected and that is going to be considerably tougher to treat.
Dealing with Exhaustion
Just like dehydration, exhaustion isn’t an injury but rather a common ailment. When you feel tired and feel as though you’ve pushed yourself too much, you need to stop and rest. Now, exhaustion doesn’t go away in a matter of minutes, it can take hours at the best of times and you need to take serious care of yourself. Proper rest is crucial; and you should ensure you drink plenty of water. It doesn’t hurt to stop and take an energy bar and it may just help get you through the day.
There could be a few reasons why you get muscle pain; the first is that you haven’t trained sufficiently enough and secondly, you’ve overdone it. No matter the reason, you should look to stop at once and rest. Drink plenty of water and use a few pain killers to help dull the pain; if you have creams that target muscle pain, use it. However, if you find yourself in terrible pain, you may be best suited to rest for a day or two and then turn back if it doesn’t get any better. You may have pulled a muscle somewhere.
There is not much you can do when you have broken a bone apart from making them immobile. When you break a bone anywhere in your body, you have very few options available to you. If you break a rib or hip, you probably won’t be doing much walking. However, if it’s a minor break say to your hand or leg, you should be able to carry on as long as you make a splint.
Now, a splint is very easy to create and once you immobilize the broken bone, you can hopefully get moving to seek medical attention. There isn’t much more you can do apart from this; you could attempt to move the dislocated bone back into place but you aren’t a doctor and it could be dangerous. Your best course of action is to seek immediate medical attention.
Deal With Injuries Quickly
Let’s be honest, injuries occur at the best of times and even when you are extremely careful you can still get hurt. Sometimes, it’s a minor fall that causes the most injuries but you need to know how to take care of these. It doesn’t matter if you travel alone or with a group of people, you still need to know how to deal with any injury whilst hiking.