A terrible thought crosses Helen Skelton’s mind. “I am going to need seven bottles of shampoo,” she says, aghast.

It is indeed scary news for the 26-year-old Blue Peter presenter, but not perhaps the worry that would be uppermost in the minds of most people setting off on a world record-breaking ordeal.

Her task over the next six weeks is to kayak solo for 2,010 miles down the Amazon. No woman has ever done that before, let alone one with no paddling experience.

On route she can expect to encounter 20ft anacondas and shoals of piranhas; hideous blisters and sores are guaranteed.

As she steers her 15-kilo boat along the crocodile-infested river, there is also a likelihood that she will contract a disease such as yellow fever or malaria.

But, with the glorious optimism of youth, it is her bottle-assisted blonde hair that she is fretting about.

Meeting her in the primary-coloured Blue Peter studio at the BBC before her departure, every inch of 5ft 3″, Skelton looks perfect for the life the programme’s presenters used to lead – caring for animals, making Tracy Island with sticky-backed plastic – in the days before the producers decided to beat Top Gear at its own game.

Sparkly silver eye liner, a short skirt and a red bow in her hair, make her appear every 7-year-old’s dream role model.

But it would be a mistake to underestimate Skelton. “I’m a kids TV presenter. I use hair straighteners every day.

“But just because I am a girlie girl doesn’t mean I can’t be gritty,” she says with the steely glint that has already taken her a long way in her short life.

Last year, she proved her point when, in April, she became the second woman to complete the 78-mile ultra-marathon in Namibia, running the three consecutive marathons in 23 hours and 50 minutes.

So this year, when Blue Peter decided to stage a stunt to raise awareness for Sport Relief, Skelton wanted even more of a challenge.

She was at the hairdressers when Greg Whyte, the Olympic sports scientist who trained David Walliams to swim the Channel, rang to suggest she swam the 51-mile Panama Canal.

“Great, but not tough enough,” she replied, “and it must appeal to kids.” He then suggested a section of the Amazon, to which she replied: “Why do a bit, when you can do the whole thing?”

James Cracknell, the double Olympic gold medallist, was asked his opinion. Having nearly died during his attempt to row the Atlantic with Sunday Telegraph columnist Ben Fogle, he was blunt.

“You can’t do this,” he told her. “You don’t know me,” replied Helen.

She arrived at the start of her journey a week ago, after visiting two of the many charities assisted by Sport Relief: What4, a drop-in centre to keep young people off the streets in Cheriton, Kent, and Proceso Social, which works with the families who live on the rubbish tips of Peru’s capital, Lima.

The charity projects were inspiring, but she was soon in tears when she arrived at the Amazon last week.

“Everything went wrong. We didn’t have a boat to take us out, so I only managed half a day on Wednesday, the first day, and on Thursday we started late so already I’m behind,” she admitted via satellite phone from the river.

“Within two hours of paddling, my hands were so badly blistered that they had to be taped up, I took a wrong direction and had fight the current; it was exhausting. The heat here is so intense that it really drains you.”

It sounds like she might almost be ready to give up. “Oh no,” she shrieks, “It’s pure comedy and there are pink dolphins – really pink, not grey – that come close to the boat. I still reckon that if I manage 60 miles a day – just a little more than the 58 I managed on Thursday – I can make it.”

The secret of her iron will is the desire, as a child, to keep up with her sporty elder brother, Gavin, who now plays football for Kilmarnock.

As children on their parents’ dairy farm in Cumbria, she would be left behind if she didn’t run, bike and play as fast as boys two years’ older.

Over the years, her family has learnt not to talk sense into her when a certain look appears on her face. “Good Luck” is all they dare say, for fear of adding to her determination.

Helen will need luck over the next six weeks because a punishing schedule lies ahead.

For six out of seven days each week, she will paddle for at least ten hours, from 5.30am until dark, with only a short break for lunch when the heat and 100 per cent humidity become unbearable.

On the seventh day, she will make films to inform Blue Peter’s 750,000 viewers about the flora and fauna of the world biggest river, and write a weekly column for the Sunday Telegraph‘s Travel section about her adventures.

This is a genuinely risky assignment. Even Google is baffled by trying to find a route from Natua in Peru, where the rivers Maranon and Ucayli join to form the Amazon, down to Almeirim in Brazil where the river becomes tidal.

There are no roads, no towns, only rainforest and the river, often wider than the English Channel, along which she must navigate. If she falls ill, it will take around 11-hours to fly her to safety.

To make life still more stressful, she is paddling against the clock because the BBC – mindful of the licence fee payer, its schedules, and Sports Relief weekend starting on March 19th – has booked her a non-transferable flight home on March 5th.

Nor is the BBC wasting money on frills. Prior to her departure, the Blue Peter studio was piled high with boxes of filming equipment, mosquito repellent and sunscreen, but Helen’s personal comfort comes second.

“I’ve only got one seamless bra, which shouldn’t chafe, because they cost £50 each,” she says, and some special pants that will act as a wick to remove the sweat.

Surely it would be better to paddle naked, as Cracknell and Fogle did on the Atlantic, to avoid clothes rubbing?

She shakes her head vigorously. “I can’t do that because there will be four men on the other boat – producer, cameraman, doctor and fixer – watching me all the time.”

Nothing in her life so far has prepared her for the gruelling journey – not being an extra on Coronation Street, nor being an qualified tap-dancer, certainly not her degree in journalism from the Cumbria Institute of Arts, or her pre-Blue Peter experience presenting a breakfast programme on Radio Cumbria.

On November 1st, when she was given the go-ahead for the Amazon trip, she had only ever been kayaking once before, this summer.

“I was in a New York hotel room, having run a marathon. Immediately I took hold of a broom handle and started paddling on my bed.”

From then until she left for Peru just over a week ago, she struggled to train for four hours each day. She can now manage 300 press-ups in a row, but still most wiseacres believe the Amazon challenge will defeat her.

If she does make it, it will partly because she is listening to Queen’s “Don’t Stop Me Now” on her iPod, and partly because children all over the country are emailing her their encouragement.

“Who am I to let them down?” says Miss Grit. “It would be like saying the tooth fairy doesn’t exist.”

If you’re inspired by Helen’s efforts, you can raise money by signing up for the Sport Relief Mile. Go to www.sportrelief.com for details.

Helen Skelton completes the Namibia ultra marathon

Expedition and Wilderness Medicine have once again been called upon to help BBC’s Blue Peter program. After Helen Skelton, one of the loveliest presenters we have ever had the pleasure of working with, completed Across the Divide’s  Namibia Ultra Marathon, considered by many to be the hardest desert marathon in the world and for which EWM medics provided support, she is now heading off down the Amazon and Expedition and Wilderness Medicine and Across the Divide and  were called upon to provide medical support.

Expedition and Wilderness Medicine who provide remote medical support for film crews and media companies have been busy preparing Helen for the rigours of her next adventure and expedition doctors Dr Sean Hudson and Lucy Dickinson have been busy in the BBC centre running scenarios and doing on site training.    Dr Dickinson has the pleasure of accompanying the Blue Peter expedition but rumours have it is she is more excited about the prospect of gaining an elusive Blue Peter badge than exploring one of the world’s greatest natural wonders!!

In true BBC fashion it was all filmed for prosperity and will appear on next weeks Blue Peters shows on Tuesday 19th of January and Wednesday the 20th.

Wilderness Medicine courses

For a limited time only Expedition and Wilderness Medicine are offering £100 of our legendary Polar Medicine Course from the 7th to the 13th of February 2010 to be held in Alta, northern Norway.  Contact Rosi for more details.

‘Probably one of the best courses that you will ever do!’ ‘Incredibly well organised, and presented with an infectious enthusiasm’ Past EML delegate.

Diving Medicine Training Course in the Maldives

Diving and Marine Medicine Training Course – Indian Ocean

3 – 9 OCTOBER 2010 ABOARD THE LIVEABOARD MV ARI QUEEN, THE MALDIVES

Expedition and Wilderness Medicine are very excited at being able to offer an inspirational course for all those medical professionals responsible for clients or expedition team members in a diving or marine environment.

This is a 6 day course, aiming to give participants an understanding of conditions likely to occur whilst working as a doctor on a diving expedition. Topics covered will include pre-expedition medicals, diving-related illness, marine envenomation, emergency treatments and casevac plans. Practical sessions include boat handling, search & rescue and underwater communications. There will be at least 2 dives a day, including a night dive and hopefully a visit to the hyperbaric chamber on Kuramathi Island – the largest facility in the Maldives. At the end of the week, participants should feel confident to act as medical officer on a diving expedition, or in any UK diving medical practice. Read the ‘What to Expect’ section below to get more of an idea of what the course entails.

MINIMUM COURSE REQUIREMENTS
All participants are expected to at least have a PADI Open Water qualification (or equivalent) with a minimum of 10 dives. Ideally participants should have PADI Advance Open Water qualification (or equivalent) as we will be doing some current diving. Conditions are dependent on dive sites, currents and times of year. If your qualification is not recent we recommend you complete at least 2 or 3 refresher dives before the course so that you get the most out of the fantastic diving the Maldives offers.
If the group is mixed, the dives will be split into 2 groups, so that each group is diving to its own ability.
PARTICIPANTS MUST BRING WITH THEM THEIR DIVE QUALIFICATION CERTIFICATES AND LOG BOOKS AS PROOF OF DIVING QUALIFICATIONS.

The Diving And Marine Medicine Course is accredited for FAWM points but we are waiting for confirmation of these as the Diving medicine course has moved to a new location.

CME accredited wilderness medical training courses.

Medical Training for Media Production Companies

December 3rd 2009
09.00 – 13.00

Royal Geographical Society, London

This is a free training seminar, limited to 25 places, for people involved in filming or media projects abroad in locations where medical cover is not close at hand. It will highlight the biggest risks and you will learn how to administer immediate care and the importance of including the medical provision in your planning.

Anyone who is part of a media crew or production company working on location abroad in remote environments or who is filming and photographing adventurous activities.

Interested?   Then contact Piers Carter on  Piers@expeditionmedicine.co.uk  or  07801 104604

Expedition and Wilderness Medical Training

The recent journal of Wilderness and Environmental Medicine: Vol. 20, No. 2, pp. 166–168 compares a molded SAM splint as a collar with the traditional philadelphia collar.

The SAM splint was simply wrapped and molded around the C spine. and degrees of movement of the C spine were tested in all planes.

They found no significant difference in the ability of the 2 collars at limiting movement of the cervical spine. Podolsky and colleagues, in a prior study, found that the Philadelphia collar is as effective as numerous other collars available for cervical spine immobilization.

None of these devices has the broad range of uses that can be performed by a SAM splint (in addition to limiting movement of the cervical spine) The ability to carry one universal device for so many different medical conditions is one of the advantages of the SAM splint. This study helps to validate the practice of using a SAM splint as a universal splint for environments with limited medical supplies.

For more information on Expedition and Wilderness Medicine visit www.expeditionmedicine.co.uk.

Wilderness Medicine resources and training courses.

A very exciting, record-breaking, and ever so slightly crazy sort of challenge. It involved my little boat, the Indian Ocean and lots of chocolate. April Fools Day 2009 I set out from Western Australia in a bid to become the first woman to row solo across this ocean. 124 days later after 4,000 miles, having eaten all my chocolate, faced storms and mid-ocean capzies , I landed in Mauritius. It was raw and elemental – just as adventure should be.

Find out more about Sarah’s epic row at http://www.sarahouten.co.uk or donate online via JustGiving

Landing at the end of the record breaking row

I found an interesting article and consensus on the pathophysiology and treatment of hyponatraemia. Exercise-Associated Hyponatremia: Overzealous Fluid Consumption, Wilderness and Environmental Medicine: Vol. 20, No. 2, pp. 139–143.

The medical profession is certainly engaging with this increasingly prevalent condition. This particular article approaches the condition from a wilderness perspective and hence is more appropriate for expedition medical professionals. In essence Exercise-associated hyponatremia is hyponatremia occurring during or up to 24 hours after prolonged exertion. In its more severe form, it manifests as cerebral and pulmonary edema. There have now been multiple reports of its occurring in a wilderness setting.

It can now be considered the most important medical problem of endurance exercise. The Second International Exercise-Associated Hyponatremia Consensus Conference gives an up-to-date account of the nature and management of this disease. This article reviews key information from this conference and its statement. There is clear evidence that the primary cause of exercise-associated hyponatremia is fluid consumption in excess of that required to replace insensible losses.

This is usually further complicated by the presence of inappropriate arginine vasopressin secretion, which decreases the ability to renally excrete the excess fluid consumed. Women, those of low body weight, and those taking nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs are particularly at risk. When able to be biochemically diagnosed, severe exercise-associated hyponatremia is treated with hypertonic saline.

In a wilderness setting, the key preventative intervention is moderate fluid consumption based on perceived need (“ad libitum”) and not on a rigid rule.

Expedition and Wilderness Medical Training Courses for Medical Professionals