I don't know about cooling vests and stuff sine I'm a hermit in my A/C house now, but I just hope you can stay cool enough to enjoy New Orleans. Go from bar to bar..

Have a marvy time..

Thanks so much to everyone for the useful suggestions. My DH keeps trying to get me to buy some of these products as he sees me suffer and go stir crazy just being trapped in the house. It has been over 100 degrees here now for 2 weeks!! I'm excited to see New Orleans again as I lived there once. My mom has MS and is meeting me with my brother's kids. I guess she will be suffering too. It may just take a lot of pit stops at bars for icy hurricanes to make it around.

My experience with the vests and such is that they are great for sitting still in the heat for relatively short periods of time. The problem is that the more active you are, the more heat you generate and the less time the cooling effect lasts. With most of them, once the cooling effect is done, they start to insulate you and trap heat in. Once that happens, you will want to be able to take it off and not have to carry it around with you.

So if you have a car or hotel room nearby to stow it in after it gives up, you will be fine, but if you are going to be walking around in the heat, the last thing you will want is to be carrying or wearing a bulky vest that is no longer cooling you.

Thanks TX that explains it exactly! when I am sitting at a picnic or an air show with my vet on with its ice packs and so on, it works fine. I do stay cooler, but if you plan on walking the town, or running, or biking I find that the weight of the vest and the ice packs makes me heat up that much faster. Then the ice melts, and now I am wet, hot and miserable. it feels like I am wearing my bullet proof vest to ride my bike. If I were at the beach sitting on a blanket or reading a book in the park it would be different, but to be active I find that mine is more trouble than its worth. so...I do without. I just let the blindness take me.

Walked 3 miles today. 1.5 UPhill. and 1.5 downhill. really gave my legs a jello wobble workout. lol. I was shakey by the time I got home. The street got a new coat of gravel, so it was unsteady under my feet.

I survived it without the vest.

You have a great caring cheerleader husband, Dej. I've gotten fat and lazy since mine died..

@ sally

I have a friend with MS who loaned me her cooling neck wrap. I tried it at her pool when it was 102 out. It seemed to work! But again I was just sitting in the shade under an umbrella. She had a great set up--umbrellas over the pool for shade and over the table, a giant fan, and misting bottles to use. I definitely did not get the heat cog fog. I found the neck wrap only lasted for about 90 mins. though. Off to New Orleans tomorrow. It's 15 degrees cooler there than here which is crazy! Today was 106.

Have fun, Natalie..

Thought I would bump this up as it's summer and we are suffering. Good info on cooling products, even free ones. Yesterday was the first day over 100 here -- it's late coming this summer but time to prepare because it will be mostly 100+ from here on out!

How was that trip, Natalie? I realize it was years ago; this is an old thread.

I just requested free cooling supplies from the MSAA. The stuff I got many years ago from them aren't working so good anymore.