“Fever is nature’s engine, which she brings into the field to remove her enemy.” Thomas Sydenham, M.D.
What do you do when a fever develops? Do you panic? Are you conditioned to feel that your health is in danger and that treatment is crucial? Do you reach for the acetaminophen (Tylenol) or aspirin, or do you run to the doctor for a prescription? If you do, you are interfering with one of nature’s most effective healing systems. Fever is a friend not an enemy. It is a healthy response by the immune system to seek out and eliminate foreign material which is causing the fever response. Allowing the fever to complete its work and run its course strengthens the immune system which is the best thing you can do for the health of the body.
The research which produced the about face in attitude about fever was done by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease (NIAID) around 1975. This research was sponsored by the National Institute of Health (NIH). The process which raises the temperature is an increase in defender white blood cells, our disease fighting cells. These produce endogenous pyrogen which reaches the brain through the bloodstream. There they stimulate the prostaglandins, hormone-like chemicals, which act upon the hypothalamus, the temperature regulating mechanism – the brain’s thermostat.
Temperatures of 102° are considered commonplace. Temperatures of 1040 are considered self regulating, needing supervision but not necessarily suppression.
Fevers need not be neglected. They can be controlled with safe, natural techniques. Drinking fluids, getting bed rest and encouraging waste elimination through the bowels, and through the skin by sweating, usually bring about results in a few days.
It is Nature’s design for a fever to cause weakness and the desire to sleep. This automatically encourages bed-rest allowing the body’s healing resources to attack the disease.
The doctors generally agree that fever need not be treated unless it reaches 104° or more or persists for too long a time or other symptoms indicate that the fever, is caused by a more serious problem than a simple healing syndrome.
Fevers do not always represent infection. They may be caused by drug toxicity, dead tissue, cancer cells or any toxic bio-accumulation.
As many FACT readers know, whole-body hyperthermia, a cancer treatment that destroys cancer cells, creates fever artificially to temperatures of about 108°. This should help one understand the value of fever and make it acceptable.
