Complaints & connections · borters.ch
Febris
Fever is the defence at work, not the enemy — what matters is how the person is doing with it.
Also known as: fever · raised temperature · chills
Open in the tool — with search and all the links →This compilation is for information and replaces neither medical diagnosis nor treatment. If you have symptoms, see a doctor.
Fever isn’t a disease but a useful defence reaction of the body — usually to an infection (viruses or bacteria). Fever is from about 38 °C, high fever from around 39 °C. It helps the immune system and needn’t be lowered at all costs; the general condition matters more than the exact number. Plenty of fluids and rest are the basis; fever-reducing medicines as needed for discomfort. Medical help is advisable with very high or multi-day fever, marked illness, neck stiffness, breathlessness, a rash, confusion, or fever with no clear cause. Take special care with babies and small children, in pregnancy and with a weakened immune system — seek help earlier.
The basis — the body loses more fluid and needs rest.
Fever reducers ease discomfort but aren’t always needed.
Keep an eye on duration, height and accompanying symptoms — this guides decisions.
With the warning signs above or in risk groups, seek medical help.
Dip two cloths in hand-warm water, wring them out, wrap the calves, change after ten minutes, repeat three times.
Drink spread over the day, warm preferred, enough that the urine stays pale.
With fever and aching limbs, clear the day; only take up exertion again a day after the fever has gone.
Fever within three months of a malaria area belongs investigated the same day, even without shivering and even under regular prophylaxis.
A liver abscess can arise months after a journey, even with no diarrhoea ever. Ultrasound and a blood test clarify it quickly, and it treats well.
One to two weeks after raw pork, wild boar or bear meat: fever, muscle pain and swollen eyelids. The eosinophils are strongly raised.
Fever reducers lower the temperature by about one to one and a half degrees for four to six hours — they do not shorten the illness and they do not prevent febrile seizures. Their purpose is comfort: being able to drink, being able to sleep. So the decision to give follows the state of the person, not the number on the thermometer. Alternating drugs every two hours adds no benefit and raises the risk of a dosing mix-up.
Fever counts from a core temperature of 38.0 degrees, high fever from 39.0. Measured rectally the value is about 0.5 degrees above a reading in the mouth and up to a degree above a reading under the arm. Temperature varies through the day by about 0.5 degrees and is highest in the late afternoon. Fever lasting more than three weeks without an identifiable cause has a name of its own and a work-up of its own.
Viruses or bacteria are the most common cause — fever is part of the defence.
How ill someone feels matters more than the exact temperature.
Neck stiffness, breathlessness, rash, confusion or very high/long fever → doctor.
Babies/small children, pregnancy and the immunocompromised: seek help earlier.
Fever, sweating and faster breathing clearly raise the need. Drinking enough keeps the mucus thin and the circulation steady — in children and older people it is the most important point of all.
With low levels airway infections occur somewhat more often; correcting a deficiency makes sense, a high single dose during the infection does not act on it.
Needed by the defence cells. For lozenges at the start of a cold there are hints of a slightly shortened duration; at a high dose over months zinc lowers copper.
Antibodies and defence cells are protein. After several days with little appetite it is worth at least keeping the protein up — soup with egg, quark, yoghurt, lentils.
Taken continuously it shortens colds by about half a day. Started once symptoms are there, the studies show no difference — and on fever itself it has no effect.
As a lozenge started within 24 hours, 75 mg a day for at most a week: that is the frame in which a shortening was shown. At that amount over months zinc disturbs copper uptake.
Clearly worthwhile and well studied when deficient; fewer data for the wider uses. Fat-soluble — check blood levels at high doses.
The body’s own cortisol is lowest in the evening — which is why fever typically rises towards evening and falls towards morning. A fever that does not show this rhythm is worth a second look.
A severe overactive thyroid can cause fever, racing heart and confusion without any infection — the thyrotoxic crisis. Rare, but it is regularly mistaken for sepsis.
Anyone on standing cortisone needs more of it with a fever — their own adrenal gland cannot supply the extra need. That is the one situation in which an ordinary infection becomes dangerous.
Per degree above 37 °C the need rises by about 10 %, more in children. At 39 °C that is around 500 ml extra a day — the single most important measure.
Loss of appetite over 2–3 days of fever is normal and harmless. In children the number of wet nappies counts for more than the empty plate.
Leg wraps lower the temperature by a few tenths and make things more comfortable. With shivering and cold feet they do not work — the fever is still rising then and the body wants warmth.
The sweating tea par excellence: drunk hot, then to bed. It does not lower the fever — it makes the hours more bearable, and one drinks anyway.
Traditionally mixed with lime flower. Both flowers work through the same thing: warmth, fluid, rest.
The bark contains salicin — the substance aspirin was developed from. The amount in a tea is a fraction of a tablet; anyone who cannot take aspirin cannot take the bark either.
A drop in the water for a calf compress — the coolness is the contribution, not the oil. Calf compresses belong only on warm legs; with cold feet they do the opposite.
Common in the diffuser in a sickroom. With babies and toddlers oils in the room are used sparingly and never right by the bed.
Looking, listening and smelling, asking, feeling — TCM takes the findings without a thermometer. Historical and interesting; with a feverish child it does not replace the measurement.
Warm and cold here means not the temperature but the ascribed effect. With fever the cooling is recommended — light food and plenty of fluid, which overlaps with what does good anyway.