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
Internal medicine physician here.
Fever is not always bad. If not associated with any pain and not severe, you don’t require anti-pyretics. People just do it because it makes them feel like they’re doing something sometimes. We also know now that the fever isn’t needed for most infections.
Your body also has an extremely complex immune system. Fever is part of the primitive response. Primitive response reacts first while the more complex processes ramp up. Macrophages start devouring viruses and bacteria and present pieces of them to T cells. T cells then bind to plasma cells when ramp up their production. It also provides the plasma cell the information it needs to produce antibodies. Antibodies are secreted and attach to the viruses and bacteria. Once they are, “tagged,” the immune system swarms these cells and kills them rapidly. This can take 10-14 days usually. I’ve grossly oversimplified it leaving out numerous cell types, but this is the main process to eliminate infection.
As for taking things to alleviate symptoms. A viral upper respiratory infection causing a cough is just inflammation of the airways. Suppressing the cough with something like dextromethorphan does not delay the dealing process. Ibuprofen for a headache from the flu doesn’t impede the immune response. This logic is generally true for most common infections, but not all infections. You definitely don’t want to take Imodium if you might have C. diff!
Latest Answers