Summer Health Guide: Common Conditions and How to Handle Them

Stay safe this summer by managing common health conditions like sunburn, rashes, dehydration, and allergies. Discover options for your health and travel.

April 7, 2025
Health and Wellness, Reliable Cares, Reliable Resources

Summer in the Philippines is a time for vacations, road trips, and making the most of the sun—but it also brings a range of seasonal health concerns that can affect anyone. Whether you’re staying active outdoors or simply trying to beat the heat at home, it’s important to stay informed and prepared. Some conditions are minor but uncomfortable, while others can quickly become serious if ignored.

Here are the most common heat-season conditions and what you can do to prevent or manage them.

Common Summer Conditions and How to Handle Them

As temperatures rise, so do the chances of experiencing sunburn, rashes, allergies, and dehydration. Here’s a list of conditions to watch out for during the summer months, plus a few tips to keep them from ruining your fun in the sun.

Sunburn

While a common condition all year round in tropical countries like ours, you and your loved ones can become more vulnerable to sunburn during summer, even if you’re not at the beach or out playing in the streets. Even relatively moderate exposure to the sun during peak hours can cause damage to your skin. Acute effects include skin redness and pain. Blisters appear for second-degree sunburn.

What to do: The easiest way to prevent sunburn is to use sunblock with a minimum SPF of 30 every two hours. In case you or a loved one suffers from the acute effects, immediately bathe or shower in cool water and try to keep as much of the moisture on your skin after drying up. Do not pop blisters, as they may lead to infections.

Prickly Heat and Rashes

Far more common than sunburn, any Filipino who spent hours playing in the sun has experienced “bungang araw” -- small, raised red rashes, often on the neck and shoulders caused by the hot and humid weather, sweating, and tight clothes -- at least once.

What to do: Aside from applying powder specifically made to deal with prickly heat and rashes, you can also take a cool bath or shower to relieve symptoms. Avoid scratching the rashes. For additional relief, you can apply calamine lotion, 1% hydrocortisone cream, or a prescription cream.

Dehydration

Given how hot summers can get in the Philippines, you’d think “stay hydrated” would be something we all did regularly. But dehydration remains a common summer condition, especially for people who are busy working, playing, or too engaged in vacation activities to notice they haven’t drunk enough water until they start feeling the symptoms of headache, fatigue, and dizziness.

What to do: Feeling thirsty is usually the first sign of dehydration, so drink some water as soon as it occurs. The Department of Health (DOH) also recommends not staying outside between 10:00 am and 1:00 pm, and wearing loose, comfortable clothing to reduce the risk of dehydration.

Allergic Rhinitis

While the Philippines doesn’t have a Spring where flowers bloom in droves, Summer is usually the time when our local flora becomes active. This often means spores, pollens, and other things that cause allergic rhinitis in people susceptible to them. It feels like the common cold, especially the stuffy noses and red eyes, so be sure to get a proper diagnosis if you’re unsure of what you’re feeling.

What to do: You can treat allergic rhinitis with over-the-counter antihistamines and decongestant nasal sprays. If there’s no drugstore near you, like on some remote beach, you can mix a saline solution or just use salt water in that alcohol sprayer you have always carried since the pandemic to rinse your nose of offending pollen and spores. If the allergy persists, see a doctor to avoid potential complications like anaphylactic shock.

Insect Bites

The sun blazing in the sky can also be a call for many insects to come out, whether for their seasonal cycles or in reaction to human activities, especially the presence of food. Bees and ants are common summer insects, but you can also fall victim to mosquitos, ticks, and caterpillars—locally known as “higad”—falling from trees.

What to do: While often tolerable, if insect populations are getting out of hand where you are, you can apply insect-repellent lotion to ward them off. You can also ask pest control to help deal with particularly excessive and aggressive insect populations. Some insects can induce life-threatening conditions like anaphylactic shock from bee stings or dengue from mosquito bites, so be mindful of what bites you and act accordingly.

Be Prepared: Health and Travel Coverage for the Season

While preparation to prevent seasonal incidents like sunburn and allergies is always best, it’s even better if you and your loved ones have sufficient protection in case the unexpected happens.

Most health insurance plans can provide coverage for seasonal inconveniences like a particularly nasty rash from the heat or even second-degree sunburn. Depending on your coverage, you can also be assured of receiving proper care in case of incidents like complications from insect bites or anaphylactic shock from allergies. At the very least, having health insurance means you can be confident to see a doctor anytime when needed.

Travel insurance is also something to keep in mind during the summer, given that this is also the season for traveling most of the time, especially during Holy Week. Whether adventuring locally or vacationing abroad, travel insurance helps keep you safe and secure no matter where you are.

At Reliable Insurance Brokers, we offer personal health coverage and travel insurance policies to help you stay protected no matter how hot the sun gets or wherever you wish to go on vacation. We’ll help you choose the policies you need so that summer is all about fun and sun for you and your loved ones.

Get in touch with us today to learn more about how we can assist you in securing the right insurance coverage this summer.