Why do we take medicine to suppress symptoms like coughing, fever, etc. when those are our bodies way of fighting infection?

Question

I’m sick rn and I’ve taken medication to reduce my fever. But isn’t a fever your body trying to cook out the infection? Ofc it could cook me as well, but if my fever goes away then won’t that just aid the germs?

In: Biology

Answer 1

Medicine will make you feel more comfortable when sick so people tend to use it to feel better. I like to avoid using medicine if my fever isn’t too high and try to sleep it off instead. However, almost any infection can cause a high-grade fever, particularly if the body has not been exposed to the pathogen before and has no immunity to it. A high fever (roughly 103 F/39.4 C and higher) can be damaging to body organs and cause brain damage. Therefore, it is necessary to use medicine to lower the fever so this won’t happen. It happens when something called pyrogens, are released either from bacteria or viruses or from destroyed cells of the body, which causes a rise in body temperature.