I’ve heard two differing opinions on why we get fevers:
It’s your body trying to “cook the sickness,” raising your body temperature to a level that will kill whatever it is that’s making you sick.
It’s the undesired consequence of your body’s fight against the illness.
If it’s #1, then why do they make medicines like aspirin and ibuprofin to reduce fevers? If you body is generating a high temperature on purpose, shouldn’t you allow it?
But if it’s #2, then why is it conventional wisdom that sick people should be “bundled up” and kept warm? Shouldn’t people with fevers be encouraged to stay as cool as possible, to help reduce the fever?
Fever-reducing medicines serve three purposes: First, the medications you mentioned are primarily painkillers, and any effects on fevers are secondary. Secondly, there’s an overwhelming tendancy for people to want to treat the symptoms of a problem, rather than the problem itself, and pharmaceutical companies are glad to oblige. Other examples of this behavior are taking antihistamines for colds and wiping away sweat on a hot day.
Finally, a very high fever can get out of control, and start killing off good cells, as well as germs. In this case, fever reduction really is the best course of action.
Any fever is an overreaction. Anything over 100º is burning off brain cells.
Also, you never know when your temperature will suddenly go up another 2º and you can’t control it fast enough. Lower every fever as soon as it appears.
Smeghead and Mu Mu, do you have citations for those points? I ask because 1) there have been several cancer researchers who have begun looking into artificially-induced fevers to attack cancer (although I have not heard that they have been successful) and 2) I was under the impression that brain damage was not an issue below a temperature of 103°.
Surely, you’d think the correct hypothesis must be that having a fever confers an advantage in fighting infection. However, this recent review declares otherwise.
For a child under a year, call the doctor right away if they get a fever. Treatment of the fever isn’t as important as determining, and treating, the cause.
For children over a year, call the doctor for persistent fevers (more than 3 days of a 101 degree or higher fever), unusually high fevers (104 or above), or if the child seems to be getting worse instead of better. Treat fevers over 102 with tylenol and/or advil. Fevers over 104 should also be treated with a sponge bath.
For adults, I usually just use a cold rag. I only give tylenol if it gets really high (103 or above). If it lasts more than 24 hours, I call the doctor because in my experience a fever that high indicates that the infection isn’t going away on its own any time soon.
For all fevers, give the patient plenty of fluids. Let them eat normally if they feel up to it. And, of course, extra kisses are a must.
“. And, of
course, extra kisses are a must.”
Why? You want to catch what they have?
Sometimes rest is important & in order to sleep one needs to reduce the fever. Aspirin or a washrag [just dip in water] work great. I like that washrag on the forehead.
One thing I wonder is, why are my dreams so weird when I have a fever?
Our general feeling in EMS in NM is the following – We do not aggressively attack fevers in adults – in children we treat it when it goes over 105.
In adults a few degrees of increase can rapidly become a bad thing, leading to seizures and other side effects. Children are much more resistant to the increasing temp and therefor are not treated until it gets a little hotter. If adults go over 102 or children over 105, they need to be evaluated by a doctor to see the cause of the fever, not the fever itself
The idea behind the fever is that your body’s metabolism can continue to work at the increased temp, but many bacteria and vrions do not work at the increased temp.
handy, PunditLisa is obviously speaking as a mommy in that last post, and everyone knows that mommy kisses make everything all better, and carry no risk of transmitting diseases.
As for the chills, that’s part of your body’s mechanism for producing the fever in the first place. When you feel cold, that’s the signal to the thyroid (I think) to get the body producing more heat. This works as expected, when used to counteract a colder environmental temperature, but when you feel cold and the ambient tempeature is normal, it causes your body temperature to increase.
The thyroid is involved in longer term temperature regulation, eg. living in a cold environment.
Acutely, as Kinoons stated, the hypothalamus (deep, ‘vegetative’ brain tissue) is the coordinator of temperature regulation.
If it wants the body temperature to rise, it sends signals to cause the generation and preservation of heat - so you shiver (muscle movement makes heat) and don’t sweat.
If the hypothalamus decides that it’s time to lose heat, to lower the temperature back to normal, it sends a different set of signals - you sweat (evaporating sweat draws off heat) and you look flushed (the blood vessels dilate to give off heat).
Is that last post right? I just had strep throat, accompanied by a fever, and for a few days I could hardly sleep, because within one minute of trying to relax mentally to go to sleep, I would feel a warmth start in my face, and then I would start to sweat at a level that kept me awake. It was extremely annoying, and almost drove me into a curled ball in the corner with the lack of sleep and frustration.
Why don’t we get more medical types on this board? I know, I’ll forward this thread to my mother, who is a Nurse Practitioner, meaning that she has prescriptive powers now. She also has 20+ years of practical nursing experience. And she raised four boys through all this type of stuff. I’ll let you know what she says.
Basically, when you get a fever, your body goes through a cycle – thats where the heat waves from. When you feel really really hot your body dilates its blood vessles to its skin and sweats to bleed off heat. when you begin to loose too much heat (according to your hypothalamus, not how you feel. You may still feel too hot) Your vessles constrict to keep blood to the core and your muscles begin to spontainously contract (shiver) to produce more heat, until your body over corrects slightly, and the cycle continues
Well, it’s a first approximation, I think, to what happens.
It sounds as if your fever was breaking as you were trying to fall asleep (when you felt flushed and began to sweat). That’s not too unusual. Often, fevers break late at night. This may be because, independent of any infection, there is a rise in a person’s cortisol level starting, typically, just after midnight. One of the effects of cortisol is to reduce body temperature (in fact, if a person is taking prednisone, or other cortisol like drugs, they may not get any fever even with an overwhelming infection).
