If the body raises its temperature to kill bacteria, why is it bad to take a hot shower when you have a fever?
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Doctor here
It’s about expending energy. Your body is using up lots of energy to fight the infection. Any extreme temperatures both hot and cold from the outside will cause your body to expend energy trying to fight against this change in temperature as if tries to reach an equilibrium.
This means being cold or being too hot is wasting your body’s energy which it could be using to fight the infection.
It’s very much different from the internal thermostat which tells your body to increase its temperature SLIGHTLY to create a fever which kills the infection but hopefully has your enzymes still working well and good.
This is also why it’s recommended to only take fever lowering medication if your body temperature goes over 38,5C. Over 38,5C starts bring detrimental to normal bodily functions. 37 to 38,5C is usually the sweet spot.
In addition, getting yourself wet usually leads to some cooling through evaporation which again, causes your body to use precious energy reserves to heat you back up again.
Being under a blanket is different in this regard. It’s not sudden extreme temperature. Just a way for your body to not feel subjectively cold due to the difference between your body temperature and outside temperature. And if actually saves your body energy resources.
Just as not moving and staying in bed and sleeping works wonders for getting healthy too because it saves energy.
Also eating soup or other easily digestible things is a good idea. Why? Because digestion is an energy intensive process when you have to digest meat and veggies and fruit.
Why do people get drowsy when they fall ill? It’s their body telling them to stay in one place, conserve energy and slow the bleep down.
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