I flew over to Damman this (Thursday/Friday) weekend. Now I have a case of the Hajj crud. (Hajj is just over and Hajis bring all sorts of germs into the kingdom. Many of us get sick this time of year.)
I have diarrhea, muscle aches, sneezes and was sweating all night. Sweating like a pig. (Do pigs sweat.) I am warm, I am feverish.
So I put on my bunny slippers and went to see the company doctor. He checked my temperature and it was normal. In fact, aside from a gruesome blood infection once, I cannot ever having a fever. Even when I am not sick, I read below 37 degrees.
How can that be? How can a person’s biochemical stuff work at a too-low temperature. Am I a Klingon?
Fevers due to infection tend to rise and fall quite rapidly. And many infections come and go without producing a real profound change in body temperature. I rarely get a fever even with the most outrageous upper respiratory or gastro-intestinal infections. I may feel like hell, but my temperature is usually ok. I see the same thing in many of my patients.
So lack of a fever may be due to just not having a temperature elevation despite infection, or it may be due to taking the temperature in between temperature elevations and hence missing it, or perhaps because someone has taken a fever reducer such as acetaminophen, aspirin, or ibuprofen to reduce the headaches or other pains from the illness.
Also, one’s mouth may not be reflective of one’s core body temperature, especially if someone is mouth breathing, or dehydrated, or recently drank liquids. Ear thermometers are notoriously inaccurate and I don’t trust the damn things.
If you really want to know your core temperature, the most accurate easy way to check is to take a rectal temperature.
The fact that you imply you had a fever with a “gruesome blood infection” in the past makes me think you’re normal.