"Adrenaline Junkies" - Burnout

[firescapes]

Some of you may have heard of the term adrenaline junkies before. I am a retired Fire Captain and 25 yr veteran of the Toronto Fire Department.. in Ontario Canada. This City is a large metro of 3 million plus...very busy spot...I just wanted to share with you about the adrenline rush situation and how it relates to burnout and the need to recognize it. When you first get on the job things are great the alarm goes and off you go as all first responders do, your heart racing and the adrenaline just a pumping. This is quite a rush and this situatuion is repeated and carries on for years................as we age the body has had so much adrenaline distibuted throughout the system it finally gets to a point where it can no longer assimilate it. This is when the problems start to occur(Burnout) It can be recognized as nausea, or not wanting to be responding to the call although you are already enroute to the call. There are other signs but these are two of the main ones.When one reaches this burnout stage it needs to be recognized and dealt with...early retirement if possible is the best solution...if not if one can go into another area of the department or service that is not first responder perse. The danger if this issue is not addresed is death. I did 25 yrs and got an early pension. I am fortunate....those that stayed 30-35 yrs all too often I saw their retirement years cut too short....anywhere from 6 mths to 1 yr and boom!! they were gone. recognize.it...hey its just a fact of the job...it doesn't mean you are a wimp or whatever it just means you are human....we all have our limits....when the stress dufflebag is full..its FULL:some just fill faster than others and adrenaline is certainly one of the factors that helps fill the bag!!

Love to hear your feedback on this ...any questions I'd be more than happy to answer...Regards...Paul

[firescapes]

I was reading one of the other postings and it was to do with burnout...the fellow had said that after all this time there is not even an adrenaline rush experienced in his own personal situation.....

.this is how I see it....the reticular activation system in the human mind weeds out familiar info and scenes...therefore these repeated emrgency events are downplayed in the brain,causing one to believe there is no adrenaline flow....the truth is the old gland still pumps it and the tired body cannot take it...what do you think??Please leave your comments....

[AnthonyM83]

My guess would be that the body produces less, because the familiar situations are so familiar. There's no fear/excitement to produce the flight/fight response. ALSO, the body might develop a tolerance. I bet there's studies on this, though.

I recognize myself to be an adrenaline junkie since my mid-teens (not why I do that job, though, evidenced by me doing other low-adrenaline jobs I loved), so long-term consequences are something I worry about. I'm a believer in the theory that your body can tolerate a certain range of heart beats and body repair. The more you body is on overdrive/adrenaline, the more it has to do repairing and earlier your body will start failing. I can feel the effects of a lot of adrenaline sometimes...body is just tense afterwards maybe slight slight dull burning feeling in chest and some tightness is back muscles that goes away in a few minutes (unless very stressed, then follows me home). Multiply that times 10,000 throughout your career! Ouch.

I also have the theory scientists/philosphers live so long, because they spend their time in calm environments being kind to their internal bodies. This is an unverified theory, though.

[Asysin2leads]

I think the problem is that adrenaline and endorphins have the interesting effect of allowing you to push your body past its physical limits. Now, this is fine once in a while if you have to get yourself out of a life and death situation, but using this ability day in and day out, or even less so but on a fairly regular basis does serious damage to your body. There have been many times on calls where afterwards I sit down and my muscles hurt, my joints ache, and I may even have a cut or bruise I didn't notice before.

[firescapes]

Thanx for your feedback...you may be right...but here's something else to think about....every time the alarm sounds even though you have experienced it thousands of times in a career, just check your vitals as you are enroute...you'll see the heart is a pumping and the adrenal gland accordingly.....point in case... The Union had made a documentary movie on Firefighters and they had one fellow(a seasoned vet) wired up to a heart monitor and you could hear the beats in the audio portion as the documetary was taking place...the narrator was walking around talking to fellows in the kitchen when all of a sudden the alarm went...the heart beat audio sound went through the roof at that point....they checked it out after the fact and found that the increase in heart rate was much more dramatic an increase than the Apollo astronauts(as you can see this was done a while back) The reason for this is because the space boys had a countdown and we as emergency responders do not.

Another point in case I can remember in my 23yr that we recieved a call..shooting or something and we were returned to station enroute....I was sitiing back in the cab on the way to the call,telling my driver directions,and then after being recalled...well holy shit I thought I was going to pass out...and here I was previous to this nice and calm...so my brain believed...but the truth is the adrenaline was still pumping so much even with out me being aware of it and the nausea and faintness was a direct result of it...you are right though the body takes a beating and it does take awhile to repair...thanx agin Paul

[AnthonyM83]

I think I understand what you're saying. Sometimes the call still gives you a reaction, but it turns more into maybe tension than an adrenaline rush. Thus you don't even realize your body was being strained so much.

I work for an ambulance company and we don't have alert tones, so when a call comes out it's easier to take your time walking to your car and driving off in a calm reasonable (yes expediant) way. I think if I would respond a lot different if we had those aweful alert tones...I belt half the increase in HR is the physical/mechanical response to that physical stimulus of the loud sound...rather than your emotions causing the stress and elevated HR.

[dropdeded]

So from those that have been around awhile, suggestions?? Or is "burnout" pretty much the most likely result. Interesting thread, I have put some amount of thought into trying to not let this job do too much damage to my mental well being. Im still new, 3 years, so I have only dealt with so much.

ed

[EMT857]

I think I understand what you're saying. Sometimes the call still gives you a reaction, but it turns more into maybe tension than an adrenaline rush. Thus you don't even realize your body was being strained so much.

I work for an ambulance company and we don't have alert tones, so when a call comes out it's easier to take your time walking to your car and driving off in a calm reasonable (yes expediant) way. I think if I would respond a lot different if we had those aweful alert tones...I belt half the increase in HR is the physical/mechanical response to that physical stimulus of the loud sound...rather than your emotions causing the stress and elevated HR.

Those alert tones can definitely get you going differently. We have 5 different agencies dispatched on the same frequency, everyone has the same pre-tone, I think even then some get excited just hearing that pre-tone because we're not sure whos going to get hit.

The minitor pagers could easily give anyone a heart attack in the middle the night. Scares the caca out of me some times. Other times I barely acknowledge it going off, even with the amplified base that could wake a deaf person.

[firescapes]

Yeah!! those infamous alert tones...in 25yrs we had about five different ones starting out in the early days with a bell on the wall in the hall....some of the tones would knock your socks off...quite often the guys would have to lever me off the ceiling as I was clawed into the ceiling tiles(crazy cat) as times progressed the alert tones of course came over the pa system and I would bound out of my bed on the click of the micrphone and be halfed dressed before the tone....sometimes I'd come out of my bed previous to the click or tone and start getting dressed...The question from the guys was"How the hell do you do that?" I told them it was training from my old Navy days...the alarm went there onboard ship and you never knew what was going down.So yeah I do agree that the tones do play apart but there is also alot more to the game.As I mentioned before when you get to that point in your latter career and going to the calls doen't feel right and you can't really put your finger on it take a step back and have a look at yourself ,,,recognizing burnout can save your life....alot of departments have stress assesments where they can tell you if you are reaching or have reached burnout...whether there is a follow up in a postive fashion to this I have yet to hear of....I did one on my dept and they said guess what...."I said I'm burned out" You know?' was more or less there response.....I asked what they had in place to help and follow up on this matter...."NOTHING!" was the answer.This is also where Unionized jobs are safe ...without a Union who in their right mind will admit they are burned out.....but remeber...going with burnout and not addressing it can be detrimental to you well being!