eli5: If fever is our body’s response to kill an infection, then why do we take medicines like paracetamol that control the fever?

Question

Also, I get that the fever can get really high at some point, which causes other effects, but why is our body not able to control its response to the infection so as to not do more harm with the fever?

In: 59

Answer 1

Actually the fever is almost always a good thing and that you shouldn’t be taking paracetamol.

The only time you should take paracetamol is if the fever get’s soo high it’s a risk or danger to you.

Many people take paracetamol to limit the fever so they can still work and do other stuff, but that’s not optimum for fighting the infection.