Because your body can (and sometimes does) overshoot the mark and kill things it isn't intending to kill with heat. It also uses up your stored energy meaning you must eat more and more often.
Better to make your body stop overheating itself, and trap heat with coverings. If you get too hot, it can be modulated by reducing or adding cover. And external heat like a water bottle can bring temps up quickly, and keep you at raised temps safely.
There is also the discomfort from a fever as well. Too much discomfort will lead people to make possibly bad decisions. Pain management is always something to keep in mind.
Also, at a high enough level (104 F), the proteins in your brain start to denature, which leads to death.
As soon as I start to feel like I might be getting sick, I immediately take as hot a bath as I can stand for about an hour then immediately cool off with cold water. Seems to do the trick quite well the majority of the time. My partner will go through the full illness while I can mostly nip it in the bud.
You don't usually need to lower the fever. We do it for comfort, mostly. Being feverish feels bad. One of my kids can tolerate a fever so I don't usually give her fever reducing medication. The other one gets so miserable that she won't stop screaming, so I give her the medication.
We evolved to have that response in a world in which hospitals didn't exist and in which we faced predation by other animals, and 'curl into a ball feeling like shit for a couple days' was the most viable way for the body to handle even the most mundane of infections (all the other ideas didn't make the cut and here we are). But now, 21st century, we're like 'oh it's just the cold' and actively attempt to mitigate it.
A slew of other things are still stuck in 20,000BC as well, like our bodies not being able to deal with copious amounts of sugar, or thinking we might have difficulties securing our next meal. Cut too many calories trying to lose some fat and your body legit thinks you're dying and starts breaking down all sorts of soft tissue that isn't fat. Or vasoconstriction when we're out shoveling snow with a warm house 15ft away, all sorts of shit
We don't like to be hot
It's not necessarily a good idea to do that though, particularly if you are able to endure the fever
Because GET BACK TO WORK
Own your shit. /s is for cowards.
Ok!
Paraphrasing my doctor: infections have evolved to the point the fever isn’t effectively contributing to fighting the infection, but we never evolved to stop making the fever. Since it doesn’t do us any good, we might as well be as comfortable as possible while our immune system does it’s part.
Is there anything out there supporting this claim? I watched the video of the (probably) biologist above, explaining exactly the contrary
Indeed you should if you are not too hot. For diseases that can be cured otherwise do that first (antibiotics for batterial infections), there are still not good medicines for virus infection, so better let your body fight the infection and decrease your temperature only if too high
Because it doesn't feel nice.
But if you're lowering every fever, you're doing it wrong.Deleted
Paracetamol also isn't particularly good at reducing fever, even though it is often used with that intent. Ibuprofen is generally more effective
I always thought while both serve both functions, paracetamol was more on the antipiretic side (i.e. lowers body temperature) while ibuprofen was more of an analgetic (pain reliever).
Also, you can take both at once although then you shouldn't take them as long. And always take the minimum effective dose (or preferably none if you can manage), but that applies to OTC non-prescribed medicine, not just to these two.
