Dr. Levi
http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/health/4341061/That-dreadful-fever-may-be-good-for-you
We did!
Abstaining from fever reducers such as the popular tylenol can turn out to be good for your health and a lifesaver.
A study that has been published in the Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine said that the results were striking, and showed that animals given drugs to fight a fever were more likely to die from flu. “The ones treated with anti-fever agents died at about a 30 per cent higher rate. It was as simple as that.”
The results led the team to believe fevers could be a natural protective mechanism which kicked in when animals had flu, to improve their chances of survival.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2951171/pdf/403.pdf
The study also points out what was just recently discovered about fever reducers and reduced vaccine efficacy.
“It is also possible that the increased mortality
risk with NSAID and paracetamol treatments may
have been partially due to their immunological or
anti-inflammatory effects, unrelated to antipyretic
activity.This is suggested by the recent study
which showed that the reduction in antibody response
to vaccination with paracetamol treatment
occurred in children with or without febrile responses.
44″
In plain words, the fever reducer blunted the immune system. If you reduce a fever you reduce the immune response and the ability to fight infections. Even attempting to do so with out a fever can cause immune system dysfunction.
I’ve known about this before because I know the principle law that governs the health of our bodies. But the timing of this article is relevant to me because my daughter’s daycare called me last week with permission to treat a fever that she began to express. They also suggested that I get her to the doctor right away so that she could be treated with tamiflu or another antiviral medication(which I would NEVER EVER do! EVER!).
Who taught us to be afraid of fevers? Our mothers? Grandmothers? Who taught them? Doctors! Who taught them?
The main thing that people are afraid of with fevers is a febrile seizure which can be scary. But what is not discussed is that febrile seizures can come on without warning and can even come on at low fever temperatures (101 degrees). It’s not how high the temperature gets. It’s how fast. And that cannot be predicted or prevented without recommending to everyone to “reduce the fever”. But it turns out that this one size fits all medical advice is not wise because these medications have not been shown to prevent febrile seizures.
But back to the “who taught us that we need to reduce fevers and be afraid of high fevers? “
In a recent journal article it was found that the combination of the measles,mumps,rubella, varicella(chickenpox) vaccine(MMRV) doubled the already increased risk of seizure with measles vaccine.
But since a medical procedure actually caused the seizure instead of infection then the role of seizure was downplayed.
Dr. Klein pointed out that febrile seizures are common but usually harmless in children. “Up to 5% of children 6 months to 5 years of age can have a febrile seizure, and they are almost always due to colds or other infections. These seizures are a benign condition and they self-resolve. They don’t have any long-term side effects; they don’t, for example, lead to seizures and they don’t lead to epilepsy.”
However, they can be alarming. “The seizures can be very frightening for parents,” said Dr. Klein. “Typically, it’s a full-body convulsion and so parents do bring [the] child to the emergency department.”
So the message is if a fever comes on from viral or bacterial origin then it should be medically monitored and possibly controlled.
If the fever is from a medical origin and results in “full body convulsions” then it’s not a big deal. It will “self-resolve”.
No wonder people are so confused about medication and the role it plays in their family’s health.
So the next time you or your child gets a fever, what do you do? What types of questions will you ask?