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
Depends on the symptoms and how severe they are.
The simple answer is that there are manageable symptoms that can be suppressed that don’t fully diminish your body’s ability to kill invaders. People resort to these treatments as a way of making it easier on them. However, they certainly do diminish your body’s natural defenses, although it’s hotly debated exactly by how much. Most doctors would tell you to go light on the medicines if you use them, but otherwise you shouldn’t.
Now for the long answer. I’ll try to tread lightly as this is somewhat controversial. The reality is that we take a lot of over-the-counter (OTC) medicine because it’s a multi-billion dollar industry and the advertisements have us convinced they work. The commercials paint a pretty picture, enough misinformation gets spread by word of mouth, and people really believe in the product as if it is some kind of magic. That’s why Tylenol and Aspirin are household names and people believe they do a lot more than they actually do. If you grew up like me, there was no shortage of people that genuinely believed Aspirin was a painkiller. It does not, in fact, work that way. You might be feeling better after taking an aspirin because it reduces inflammation, but you aren’t addressing the root problem, and you never know you might be making it worse.
There are a lot of questionable ethics for all of medicine, and it gets even shadier as you go down the rabbit hole. This isn’t meant to diminish anyone’s experience, though. If it works for you, it works for you. I just want to say that you should be skeptical. Question why you are taking a certain medication, evaluate if it is truly doing what you wanted it to, and do a risk assessment. You probably don’t need it (speaking of OTC medicine specifically, not prescriptions).
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