Fever

Fever is a funny thing. Your body induces fever to fight off a variety of infections or illnesses. Apparently, a region in your brain, the hypothalamus, handles the regulation of your body temperature, but particular kinds of illness will set your hypothalamus at a higher level. This is from molecules in your blood called pyrogens. Acetaminophen and Ibuprophen work to reduce fever by reducing the pyrogens in your blood. The thing about fever though, is that it makes you feel worse than the illness would have without the fever. Your body works better at fighting off illnesses when it’s overheated, but in today’s world of antibiotics I wonder if the fever has a place any longer. My fever of 104° last night had me feeling pretty raunchy, so today I’m off to get some antibiotics to take care of things. What’s the worst fever you’ve ever had?

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