I know people can get fevers up to +100f/37c. So why can’t our body just flip a switch and turn on a fever essentially. I have plenty of “stored” energy so I don’t see how that would be a problem.
In: Biology
A lot of people have addressed the immune system part of rising your core temperature to fight off an infection but I don’t see anyone addressing the sensory part. Your core body temperature can stay at 98.6 and you can feel cold. The sensory of cold on your outer layers is a mechanism to warn you of rapid heat loss in certain areas. Your body will increase the heat output to fight the heat loss but just because your hands/feet/face or whatever makes you feel cold, doesn’t mean that your actual core temperature is affected. These are really just signals. Like pain. Pain is a warning for potential damage, the same is true about feeling cold. Don’t think of feelings as status effects, think of them more as warning messages.
On the immune side, think of your core temperature rising(fever) as though its killing the problem with fire. If you were growing plants but they got too cold at night, would you set them on fire? No. You would either move them to a warmer place or cover them. The body isn’t going to treat every sensory issue by killing it with fire. It’s doing it as a last natural resort. Without modern medicine, if the fever didn’t kill it, you died.
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