All our lives we have been told (if you paid attention to your Dr or in health class 😉) that fevers are beneficial to fight infection. Having a fever can be scary, especially if it gets into the 104+ range. However, it’s also good. A fever, which is an elevated body temperature, sets in motion a series of mechanisms that regulate our immune system.
If you remember back to health class in high school, your hypothalamus is what sits at the base of your brain and regulates body temp. When your hypothalamus detects pathogens from the immune system, it signals for the body to generate and retain more heat. Thus triggering a fever.
There’s a saying…..”feed a cold, starve a fever.” If you have a fever you should avoid eating. You want your body focusing on the fever and riding itself of pathogens. By provoking digestion, you are over stimulating the parasympathetic nervous system.
Most fevers, a doctor will tell you to just stay home in bed and rest. When my son was 2 he got a fever of 104. The doctor told us to put him in a luke warm bath. If him temp continued at 104 or higher for two hours or more, then we were to take him to the emergency room. It’s scary, but again the body is just fighting an infection.
What’s crazy now days is the minute we find out someone has a fever, we go into full on panic because it’s possible they have corona virus! Before this pandemic, if someone had a fever they were told to go home and rest and no one really thought twice about it. But because of this virus, you get a fever, and people literally run from you! Lol
You body does some really cool things if you just pay attention to it. People are so focused on a quick fix and pump themselves with medication too early so their body becomes reliant on medication vs allowing it to use its immune system and fight it as god planned. Mind you, not all illnesses can be fought off by the immune system. I think we can all agree that there are quite a few cases where medication is needed. Please don’t go on the attack. I am not anti medication. I am just one who prefers to let the immune system try to work first. Then if help is needed, you call your doc and get your body extra help!
Before I was a mom I was rarely ever sick. Id occasionally get a stuffy nose here and there. But when I told people I was sick, it was usually to get out of going somewhere or doing something.
Today I went to the gym to try to get my body moving. It’s been over 24 hours since my fever broke. I always press for people to avoid workout when sick or right after sick. However, light exercise right after being sick is ok, depending on the illness. I took to a spin bike and did light resistance. Just a little to get my legs moving and blood flowing. 💪🏻
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