What Is Fever?
Fever is a condition where the body’s core temperature rises above the normal range. Even a slight increase of 0.5°C (or 0.9°F) from the normal can be considered a fever.
Normal Body Temperature
The average body temperature is around 37°C (98.6°F). When your internal temperature exceeds 99.5°F, it is categorized as fever. It’s essential to note that body temperature fluctuates throughout the day due to various factors like physical activity, meals, sleep cycles, and hormonal changes.
Why Fever Occurs
Fever is a natural defense mechanism. When the body detects harmful invaders like viruses or bacteria, it activates the immune system, which releases certain chemicals to raise the body’s temperature. This elevated temperature helps the body fight off the infection more efficiently.
Daily Temperature Variation
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Morning (6 AM): Lowest body temperature (about 0.9°F below average)
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Afternoon (2 PM – 4 PM): Highest body temperature (around 99.5°F)
Symptoms of Fever
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Headache
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Body aches
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Fatigue
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Loss of appetite
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Weakness
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Elevated heart rate
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Increased breathing rate
Long-lasting fever may result in rapid weight loss due to protein and fat breakdown.
THE CORE OF BODY IS THE CENTER OF OUR BODY, DIFFERENT REGIONS OF BODY MIGHT HAVE DIFFERENT TEMPERATURE
NORMAL TEMPERATURE + 0.9 FAHRENHEIT = FEVER
98.6 FAHRENHEIT + 0.9 FAHRENHEIT = 99.5 FDAILY TEMPERATURE MAY VARY BY 0.9 FAHRENHEIT DUE TO VARIOUS FACTORS
Why Fever Occurs?
One very important thing is that whenever we get fever, there is some reason hidden behind it. It never happens that you get fever without any reason.
Fever comes to protect our body. Whenever any kind of infection occurs in our body, our body wants to fight against it, to fight it (fever) prepares cells in the body (cells that kill cells and eat bacterial viruses), those cells get activated and release chemicals, this increases the temperature of our body.
This sends a signal to the brain to increase the body temperature, because as the temperature of the body increases, the cells get more activated and they kill the bacteria more rapidly. So, fever is beneficial for us, it is not harmful.
Because most of the bacterial viruses are killed in the presence of fever.
Problems of High Temperature
Increasing temperature is very good for our body because the more the temperature increases, the faster the body kills the offending organisms (due to which our body got infected), but its effect on our body is such that we feel discomfort and to treat the discomfort we start looking for medicine.
What discomfort can you feel?
- Headache
- A lot of pain in the body
- Fatigue,
- Not feeling like eating anything
- A lot of weakness
- Heart rate increases
- The frequency of breathing increases.
These are all expecting symptoms which appear when body temperature increases.
One more thing is that when we have fever our body starts breaking down mass i.e. protein and fat, when we have long fever you must have noticed that weight loss starts happening very quickly.
Causes of Fever
Infectious Causes
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Viral infections
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Bacterial infections
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Fungal infections
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Parasitic infections
Non-Infectious Causes
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Autoimmune diseases
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Certain medications
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Cancer
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Heatstroke
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Post-surgical inflammation
There are some important things in this like walking on the body, autoimmune disease, cancer, or due to some medicine, head injury, bad fever after some procedure, all these are body’s response.
Because the body feels that something is going wrong with the body, to protect itself from this the body gets fever. To keep yourself healthy and to kill any microorganisms that are there.
How to Measure Fever?
Which part of the body’s temperature should be checked to accurately measure fever?
Fever means the core temperature exceeds 99.5°F.
The closer you get to the body’s center to check the temperature, the more accurately you will check the fever.
What are these methods?
- The best is to check the temperature by inserting a catheter into the esophagus.
- The temperature of the earlobe can also be checked as it provides closeness and depth to our center and blood vessels.
- The rectal temperature of children is checked by inserting a small saprobe in their toilet as it is close to the body.
We do not do this in adults and you do not do this even in your home setting.
So we generally check the temperature from 2 places.
- By placing the thermometer in the mouth below the tongue
- By placing the thermometer in the axilla under the arms.
Since we have to take the temperature of the core of the body, you must be assuming that the mouth is an opening and there is mucosa there and it is obviously close to the body, so the temperature of the mouth is more accurate as compared to the temperature of the axilla.
Let us first talk about the axilla, since the axilla is the outer surface of our body, so obviously its temperature would be less than the core.
That is why whatever temperature you take in the axilla, whatever reading you get, you roughly add 1 to it, this gives the temperature of the core of your body. Or if the reading you get in the axilla is more than 99°F then you have fever.
Any reading in the axilla or under the arms above 99°F is fever. 98 Ana or 98.6 Ana is not a fever at all.
Now we talk about measuring temperature in the oral cavity or under the tongue because our temperature varies throughout the day.
In the early morning our body temperature is quite low, approximately less than 99.9°F.
In the afternoon our body temperature is higher than 99.9°F.
FEVER:ORAL TEMPERATURE>99 (BEFORE 2:00 PM). FEVER:ORAL TEMPERATURE>99.9. (AFTER 02:00PM)
Meaning, if the temperature of the mouth is above 99°F in the early morning, it is fever and if it is above 99.9°F in the afternoon or evening, it is fever.
Whatever temperature you measured with the thermometer, if you want to roughly estimate the temperature of the core, because fever is the actual temperature of the core.
- If you took the temperature from the axilla, then add 1 to it.
- And if you took the temperature from the mouth, then add 0.7 to it.
So this will be the rough temperature of our core.
Mild, Moderate and High Grade Fever
Which fever is called mild, moderate or high fever? You can see it in this picture. A fever above 103 is considered high grade fever.
Cautions and Treatment Fever
What precautions should we take during fever and fever?
Let us know about this in detail.
The most important thing is that fever should not be treated every time. Unless the fever is high grade or you are not feeling a lot of discomfort, it is not good to treat it.
Because fever causes rapid killing of the organisms like bacteria and viruses in our body. So, the more we tolerate fever, the faster we recover.
There is no need to take antibiotics repeatedly or to rush to the doctor again and again to cure viral fever.
If you have symptoms of cold, cold or other people also have viral fever, generally it gets cured within 3 days. If there is a lot of discomfort then taking medicine to reduce the fever can be done well.
But if it is tolerable then please tolerate it and wait for a while.
Dehydration During Fever
When you have a fever your body becomes hot and you lose a lot of water.
Because you do not feel hungry and are not able to adequately take anything by mouth, your body goes into dehydration.
So whenever you have a fever, make sure that you drink plenty of liquids, either solid or any other, so that you maintain your hydration.
When you have a fever, generally due to dehydration our body produces less urine and it becomes thick and yellow.
It is important to keep in mind that whether it is in adults or children, when you have a fever urine should come on time and the color of the urine should be normal and not too yellow.
Using Thermometer Always
When you have fever, always check your temperature with a thermometer, because everyone’s body temperature varies a little. After testing, we feel that the person in front of us has fever, but it is possible that he may not have fever.
That is why always check your fever with a thermometer and only then you can tell if you have fever.
There are many harms of telling fever by looking at it with your hands.
- It is possible that the person may not have fever and you may feel that he has fever,
- It is possible that he may have mild grade fever and you may feel high grade,
- Yes, then someone may actually have high grade fever and you may not know and you may feel that you have mild grade fever.
That is why please use a thermometer, if you do not have a thermometer then purchase it today itself.
Room Temperature During Fever
When you have fever, your body should stay at a comfortable room temperature, in which you do not shiver and can comfortably tolerate the temperature.
You can use a fan or an AC, apart from this, when you have fever, wear light clothes.
It is wrong to wear thick clothes or close your ears when you have fever. You should not do this, by doing this there will be no heat loss from your body, it will more accumulate and the temperature will keep rising.
When you have fever, wear light clothes, made of cotton, which absorb the sweat.
You should stay in an open, good ventilator or a cool or comfortable room temperature.
Bathing During Temperature
If the fever does not respond to medicine, or the temperature is rising, or you are feeling a lot of discomfort, you can take a bath.
How to take a bath?
You should take a bath in comfortable water temperature, such a temperature that you can tolerate it comfortably, there should be no shivering, bathe in luke warm water, this will make you feel well and will also help in reducing the temperature.
Next time whenever you get a fever, please do not panic. Fever comes for our good. Most of the fevers are viral fevers which get cured on their own with the passage of time. The risk of bacterial infection is less, especially in people whose immunity is strong.
All of us who go out and work in our daily routine generally do not get bacterial fever.
Apart from this, bacterial fever is definitely caused by some such thing that if you feel that something is wrong then we should rush to the doctor.
Final Thoughts
Fever is your body’s natural response to fight infections. While it can cause temporary discomfort, it plays a vital role in keeping you healthy.
Most fevers, especially those caused by viral infections, resolve on their own. Use a thermometer to monitor temperature accurately, stay hydrated, and consult a healthcare provider when necessary.