Health care
BY ELISABETH JIMENEZ
Health Care Edition
2025
Readers, welcome to your annual CI Health Care Edition! Life can be so hectic and the priorities are endless, but our health should be at the top of the list. Here in the Cedar Park/Far Northwest Austin area, we’re lucky to have access to top-notch care, from hospitals and clinics to testing sites and holistic services. Dive into our Annual Health Care Edition to explore your local options, and thank you to our sponsors and advertisers for enabling Community Impact to keep our residents informed.
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What's inside
Catch up on news from local health care providers (Page 17)
Read tips for nding the best personalized care (Page 19)
Learn about new developments from Central Health (Page 25)
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As Texas enters its peak season for heat and humidity, people with diabetes can struggle to cool down, facing a greater chance of experiencing heat-related illnesses, experts have found. For a person without medical problems, the body adapts to heat through sweat production and blood vessels, said Dr. Natalie Williams, family medicine doctor at Austin Regional Clinic. Sweat, which contains salt and water from the body, comes up to the skin, gets evaporated and helps the body cool down. Blood vessels can expand or shrink to disperse heat Diabetic people face health risks with Texas heat
Handling heat
"Heat stroke is very dangerous, and so the hope is to not ever get
to heat exhaustion if we can, because heat stroke is the next step." DR. NATALIE WILLIAMS, AUSTIN REGIONAL CLINIC
Williams said that diabetic patients should be mindful of how heat can a ect medicine and equipment. She said some medicines such as insulin are heat-sensitive and can lose e ectiveness when exposed to heat. Equipment such as pumps, monitors and glucose test strips can be damaged by heat. Glucose test strips can also go bad in the sunlight. Williams recommends talking with a doctor to understand individual heat-related risks. “Have conversations with your doctor about how to take care of yourself in the heat because every condition has something else that you may need to keep an eye on,” she said.
throughout the body, such as bringing the heat up to the skin instead of keeping the heat internally. However, because people with diabetes have excess sugar in their blood, that can disrupt the body’s natural cool-down mechanisms, Williams said. People with diabetes are more likely to get dehydrated because of the excess sugar, creating a lack of water in the body.
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CEDAR PARK FAR NORTHWEST AUSTIN EDITION
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