Courtesy: Medical Miracles, from Readers Digest 1981.
November.
From the frontiers of science and the far horizons of
personal courage, these stories of medical triumphs and miracles will reaffirm
your faith in the awesome powers of the human spirit. Dramatic victories and
human triumphs.
Selected and edited by the editors of Readers Digest
Just what is fever?
Simply defined it’s a state in which your body temperature has risen
automatically. It’s mainly a symptom, an
early warning signal that all is not well with you. In an adult, it may reflect anything from an
infection to some bizarre parasitic disease.
Is 98.6degrees the normal temperature? Not always. “Normal” temperature differs slightly
in various parts of the body. When a
thermometer is placed under the tongue, the red line at 98.6degree F is
generally regarded at normal for most people. (Taken rectally, the normal
temperature is 99.6degreeF; in the armpit it’s about 97.6degreeF).
Today, however physicians tend to consider a range between
97 & 99degreeF, orally, a “normal” zone.
One reason is that body temperature has its ups and downs during any
24-hour period. It is lowest (97degrees
of less) from 2 to 5a.m., when you’re sleeping.
It jumps to perhaps 99,5 degrees by the late afternoon at early
evening. Also, it is likely to be a
little higher after meals.
Beyond this, individuals vary in their natural, customary
temperature. At Northwestern University
Medical School, a professor staged a revealing experiment. Using 276 healthy students as subjects, he
took their oral temperature at 8a.m. One
student registered 99,4degrees, another 96.6degrees with the median of the
group at 98.1degrees. The classic
98.6degrees was shown by only 19 of 276 students.
What about children?
Since the heat-regulating system in infants and young children has not
been fully developed, they tend to run alarmingly high temperatures, even if
only a slight higher averages than adults.
A child may run up a fever 105degrees for a bad cold and not be terribly
sick; yet his father would probably be in serious trounce at 105 degrees.
What does a high temperature signify? Essentially, it means that you are producing
heat faster than you are losing it. Your
body’s heating system is not unlike that of your home. When your food [fuel] is burned, the
generated heat is sent through your blood vessels [pipes]. Layers of fat under the skin [insulation]
serve to cut down heat loss. You
constantly produce and throw off heat.
When production and loss are equal, temperature is normal. With fever, your body’s “thermostat” has
evidently been pushed too high.
How is body temperature controlled? Though that thermostat, a complex mechanism
governed mainly by the involuntary part of the nervous system. These cells are believed to be centered in
hypothalamus, a thumb-size area of nerve tissue situated on the floor of the
brain, behind and above the bridge of the nose.
What sparks a fever?
Dr. David J. Gocke, professor of medicine and microbiology and chief of
the division of immunology and infectious diseases at Rutgers Medical School,
explains it this way. “Fever is a sign
that tissue or an organ has been damaged.
The body responds with an inflammatory reaction. In an infection, for instance, the body tries
to get rid of the damaged tissue. White
blood cells [leucocytes] infiltrate the area and devour the damaged tissue so
that they can be carried out. In the
process, the white cells themselves break down and often die, releasing
pyrogens [heat-producing substance], which circulate to the brain and there
prod the thermostat into action. Body
temperature rises, and fever results.”
While an infection is the most common cause, a verity of
other factors may cause temperature to shoot up. Fever may be associated with an illness, such
as gout or cirrhosis of the liver, which has no oblivious infection. An injury or burn can send bits of damaged
cells into the bloodstream, to be carried to the thermostat. Certain drugs produce a similar heating-up.
How does fever affect body?
When fever takes over, you may get the shakes, your teeth may
chatter. Your skin is pale and slightly
blue, and you feel cold. Shivering
generates more heat and boots the temperature even more. Generally, with high fever comes loss of
appetite, mausea, weakness, and sometimes a stomach upset.
As the temperature rises, your thermostat issues emergency
signals to all vital organs. In the
battle to cool your body, blood vessels in the skin dilate, making your face
red. Your heart has to beat faster, and
the blood must flow for healthy new cells.
Sooner or later, the chill subsides, inside warm reaches the skin, and
you sweat—cooling-off process that drops your temperature.
Is higher temperature always dangerous? Not always.
Nor is it necessarily true that the higher the fever the graver the
illness. However, a high temperature
above 100 degrees can be regarded as significant. Consequences may depend on the fever’s
persistence as well as on the individual’s age.
At temperatures above 103 degrees, various degrees of temporary mental
derangements may appear, raging from impaired judgment to complete confusion,
restlessness and delirium. In adults, a
temperature of 106.6degrees lasting for a few hours would likely cause brain
damage and could be fatal.
Few patients survive a temperature over 109degrees. Luckily, before it reaches that level, your
body ordinarily brings life-saving emergency mechanisms into play, to take
command and produce more white cells to attack bacteria, and to create
antibodies to kill germs. Also, since
the fevers that accompany various diseases act differently, the behavior of
your thermometer can be of great help to your physician in diagnosing and
charting the colures of an illness. The
fact that you can work up with fever could be a good sigh—that your body is
sound enough to battle infection.
How should temperature be taken? Use a clinical thermometer. Before each use, sterilize it in alcohol,
rinse it in cold water, and shake it down so that the mercury drops below
95degrees. An oral thermometer should be
held under the tongue, with the mouth shut, for a minimum of three
minutes. [A rectal thermometer should
first be lubricated, the patient placed on his sue and the thermometer inserted
up to the 98.6degree line for three to five minutes.
Proper care must be used in taking mouth temperature. The reading may be off if the patient drinks
hot or cold beverages—or smokes—just before the thermometer is inserted. And if he breathers through his mouth instead
of his nose when oral temperature is being taken, the reading is meaningless.
What can be done to reduce a fever? Most physicians agree that the following
measures are usually helpful:
Keep the body’s water balance high. Since you lose a lot of water in sweating and
in vaporization from your air passages, drink plenty of fluids.
Get plenty of rest and nourishment, rather than “starve a
fever,” as some believe, doctors may recommend a high protein diet, fat and
carbohydrates. Hence, it’s generally
advisable to increase the intake of solid food [that is easily digestible] so
that your body is not weakened further.
For mild fever, aspirin of asprin-containig tablets
generally bring down temperature within 30 to 60 minutes. Adults can take a couple of five-grain
tablets every four hours; infants and children, tablet containing a total of no
more than one grain per year of age, every four hours.
Use light bed covers and keep your bedroom comfortably cool
and humid. “Sweating is out” by bundling
up under blankets in an overheated room is considered unwise. After all, your body is striving to get rid
of heat, not trying to conserve it. An
ice pack may help when the fever mounts over 103degrees.
Let your physician examine you and diagnose what’s
wrong. In your doctor’s hands, the
revealing symptom called “fever’ can usually be brought under control, and any
underlying cause be safely treated.
