When our body temperature is high, why do we feel cold?

Question

I was recently sick and my body temperature was 38.6°C. It felt like I was in a refrigerator.
So, why do we feel cold when we have a high body temperature? Shouldn’t we feel hot instead?

In: Biology

Answer 1

A fever is basically your body getting hot to kill the infection before it kills you. If you thought you were hot, you would do what you could to cool down, which is the opposite of what your body is trying to do. So your body continually tells you that you’re cold, to make you try and warm up helping kill the infection.