What chemical reactions happens inside us when a virus purposely gives us insomnia? I’m not talking about the annoyance of a fever or anything, the virus itself how can it cause insomnia?

Question

What chemical reactions happens inside us when a virus purposely gives us insomnia? I’m not talking about the annoyance of a fever or anything, the virus itself how can it cause insomnia?

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Answer 1

Viruses don’t cause insomnia.

You are looking either at side effects from medication you are taking to treat symptoms, a side effect of disrupted sleep (like if you took a 6 hour nap sleeping at night may be hard), or inability to sleep from the discomfort (like if you cough the cough keeps you awake).

Answer 2

So there’s tons of these little pests out in the wild.

And they keep bouncing off of you.

Then one lucky bugger gets in and steals a cell, and starts highjacking it to produce some special proteins and more of itself.

Then he blows up the cell, propelling all his buddies to other cells to do the same.

The special protein are in your blood and go stab your nervous system to keep it awake the whole time, so that you get weaker and your blood police isn’t as reactive.

Answer 3

Viruses don’t cause insomnia and viruses don’t do *anything* on purpose. You’re attributing motive to something that’s not even alive let alone sentient. At any rate, viruses don’t cause insomnia in and of themselves. In the case of covid, it’s theorized that some aspect of the immunize response to the virus causes insomnia, but it could also just be the fact that people who feel unwell might have a hard time sleeping, or that changes in routine often lead to sleep issues.