Are infections always accompanied by elevated temperatures?

Factual Questions
1

When someone has a bacterial or viral infection, is it always accompanied by an elevated body temperature, or is that only a response to certain types of infections?

2

Fever does not always accompany infections.

And that’s probably more due to factors involving the person with the infection than the type of infection.

If a person’s immune system is impaired or depleted in some way, their body may fail to release sufficient pyrogens to trigger a fever.

Or if the infection is superficial enough, and requires minimal response by the immune system, the body may not relese enough pyrogens this way too.

Also, presence of acetaminophen, aspirin, motrin, or similar meds may blunt the body’s tendency to run a fever. Or not.

In short, it’s complicated, and more than I can go into at the moment. But doubtless someone else may be so inclined to wax more eloquent.

3

I think the tendency to spike a fever in response to infection varies between individuals. I had chronic and serious ear/nose/throat infections (tonsillitis/sinusitis/strep) infections for many years as a child, for instance, but I rarely ran a temperature at all and if I did, it wasn’t over 100 degrees. I still don’t tend to get fevers even when I’m very sick, and my highest fever ever was 101 (when I was half-dead from untreated tonsillitis). I know people who have fevers of 102-105 all the time and don’t even feel very poorly.

4

Are they really called “pyrogens?” she asked rhetorically. (I’m not doubting you, QtM, I’ve just never seen that word before.) If so, that’s fantastic! What a great name for a fever inducing mechanism.

5

Concur.

I’ve had times where I’ve felt pretty wretched and have had a normal-for-me body temperature, including times where I’ve had a pretty nasty viral-turned-secondary-bacterial bronchitis. Last time I ran a fever was probably 12 years ago when I had flu.

6

As someone with a raging fever I have a question. Is it wise for me to put a cold towel on my forehead? It certainly feels soothing but if the fever is designed to raise my temperature to kill the virus could the towel actually lengthen my recovery by lowering my internal temperature?

7

Yup. Wikipedia actually has a nice little article on fever and pyrogens now.