Many viruses or bacterial infections mostly have symptoms that are actually defense mechanisms of our own body, like fever, coughing, sneezing and a running nose.
What does the virus itself do ? what symptoms would it cause if the body didnt fight it?
and if all of these mechanisms are meant to fight the virus, why is it safe/recommended to use drugs that fight your these defense mechanisms, like drugs to lower your fever, alleviate your cough/runny nose etc ?
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Each virus is different so it’s hard to actually answer your question completely. Here are some examples, but understand that there’re so many viruses out there and I haven’t seen it all.
In general, viruses invade your cells and replicate. Sometimes they replicate so much, they overcrowd your cell and the cell explodes spreading all those viruses to the rest of your body and causing more cells to explode and that’s not good.
Sometimes they can leave your cell without it exploding, but matter cannot be created or destroyed. Creating all those viruses takes up resources your body needs and that’s not good.
Sometimes in order to replicate, they need to insert their dna into your dna, which may interrupt valuable processes. This can cause a host of other problems such as cancer and that’s not good.
Sometimes they really don’t do anything bad at all. You might not even notice you got a virus. But it’s there and sometimes it can interact with other diseases and disorders and exacerbate the situation.
As for why we use drugs, it’s definitely a tough call. It’s not like doctors identify a problem and immediately throw drugs at it like a programmed script. They examine the situation and the patient and determine whether or not they should use a drug.
Keep in mind people *do* die from fevers. When your body gets that hot, the things that make your body work literally start unraveling. We may have come from millions of years of evolution, but that does not mean we are perfect. We still have millions of years to go. Our bodies are works in progress that will never be finished. And in the meantime, we need drugs to solve the problems that arise.
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