Eli5 please: I woke up with a little stomach bug, so why does my whole body ache? Why are the fingers and toes aching when the stomach is sick? How does that work?
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Cytokines and Interleukins. When your body is fighting a virus among other things it produces antibodies which bind to specific sites on the invading pathogen. This “tags” them for white blood cells, some of which “eat” the virus and then present bits of it on their surface like a kind of biochemical wanted poster. Others release those two substances I mentioned, which lead to more immune cells migrating towards the sites of infection/injury, and also leads to swelling. The swelling is uncomfortable, but it helps to increase the amount of immune cells that can get to where they’re needed.
The unfortunate side of effect of this can be aches and pains, fever, swelling, and depending on specific tissues infected anything from a sore throat to swelling in the lining of the brain.
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