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
These items are probably* our evolved defense to this stuff. But, they’re really unpleasant. As basically healthy individuals in the modern world, a cold is unlikely to kill us. So you can lean on your body’s defenses and be miserable for 5 days, or you can take some medicine to feel less miserable and be better in 6 or 7.
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*I don’t know of a study validating it, but I’ve always wondered if coughing *is* our body’s defense, here. Viruses are known to sometimes engineer changes in their hosts’ behavior. When you cough, you’re probably near your family – with whom you share a lot of genes. Your genes would probably prefer not to expose them to something dangerous versus taking a fairly small risk to yourself. Yet, we cough and spray these particles *everywhere*. I suspect “coughing is the body’s defense” is too simple, and the virus is actively trying to make us cough. Fever though for sure is our body’s response, and diseases *hate* this one weird trick!
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