Friendly Fevers

In my microbiology class we have the "microbe of the day."  It's the part of the class that I look most forward to.  We discuss some influential microbe, which can be a bacteria, arthropod, or virus (basically, something you need a microscope to see), and how it hurts us.  Anyway, we have already discussed sicknesses like scabies, polio, rabies, chickenpox, shingles, and other viruses (I was able to share some information in class that I learned about polio.)  The microbe that my group will be sharing is on the scarlet fever, so that's a topic that you can look forward to in the future.

Anyway, we were talking about rabies in class, and we got onto the topic of fevers and inflammation and why our bodies react in this way to viruses and bacteria. Basically, a fever just heats up the body enough to kill the proteins in the foreign body, but not enough to kill our own.  So fevers are good.

Fevers are good.

Unless, of course, they go out of control (over 104 degrees anytime or 102 for more than a few days).  It is only then that we should take a fever-reducing drug. If we take drugs to lower our fevers when they are, say, only 100 degrees, we will stop our body's defense system and the foreign body will grow faster than it should.  These temperatures apply to adults, of course, and you should consult a doctor when babies or children have fevers.

I have great respect and trust in the body's system for taking care of itself.  The drugs we introduce to our bodies rarely ever heal our bodies directly.  Most of the time they just provide a better environment for the body to heal itself. The less we meddle with the body's natural healing process, the quicker we will heal and the healthier we will feel.

(Reading this over, I realized how "German" this all sounds.)