Fever is part of the defense that the body puts in place against aggression. Allying with her to enhance that defense is the best way to overcome it and come out stronger.
- From how much is fever
- Normal body temperature
- How to measure body temperature
- Causes of fever
- How to Lower Fever Without Medicines
The human being has regulated his body temperature so that it remains constant around 37 ºC. Like other herbivorous and frugivorous animals, it defends itself from the heat by cooling itself with sweating. Fever – pyrexia or hyperpyrexia – is the prolonged increase in body temperature.
FROM HOW MUCH IS FEVER
Animals that do not sweat, such as carnivores, do so through breathing, increasing respiratory rate and evaporation with their mouth open and sticking out their tongue. The nervous system balances caloric losses and intakes to keep the temperature constant. For various reasons, body temperature may rise above normal.
Fever is considered to occur when it exceeds 39 ºC. If the temperature only rises a few tenths, it is a low-grade fever. When the elevation is temporary, for example after a great physical effort or a hot bath, we do not speak of fever but of hyperthermia.
NORMAL BODY TEMPERATURE
The normal body temperature is usually about 36.4ºC early in the day and about 37ºC in the afternoon, although the figures vary from person to person. The most accurate temperature is rectal and is usually one degree higher.
Children often have more intense or elevated fevers, due to the vitality of their immune system, which is usually a sign of a good prognosis.
HOW TO MEASURE BODY TEMPERATURE
Usually, for convenience, body temperature is measured in the armpit. Another option is to take it in the mouth, where it can reach half a degree more than in the armpit.
CAUSES OF FEVER
Most of the time the fever is of infectious origin. Microorganisms introduce toxic substances into the body and it responds. Trauma, hemorrhages and bruises, non-infectious inflammations, heat stroke… They can release internal substances that also activate the mechanism of fever.
And there are emotional situations that, by directly affecting the nervous system, unbalance the regulating centers of temperature and produce fever. The fever begins with chills accompanied by tremors, goosebumps, tooth chatter… In a process that sets in motion the increase of heat in the body by contracting blood vessels, decreasing heat loss and increasing muscle tone and activity.
With the increase in body temperature, the number of pulsations and respiratory rate rise. Urine becomes dense, appetite is lost, thirst increases, and constipation and heaviness or headache are tended.
HOW TO LOWER FEVER WITHOUT MEDICINES
Contrary to what fever may seem, it does not imply a loss of control on the part of the systems of homeostasis or self-regulation of the organism, but rather an act of solidarity and coordination between the systems and organs that compose it.
As it is easier to suppress fever than wait for it to take effect, and we do not have time to take care of ourselves, it is usual to take an antipyretic without listening to the body or solving the situations that produce it. But that is equivalent to cutting the red-light cable that indicates the lack of oil in the car instead of adding it to the tank.
Since fever is a defensive process, it should not be systematically suppressed. As Dr. Isaac Puente said, “medicine cannot offer the sick organism a substitute for fever capable of equalizing with it in results, nor of replacing it in curative efficacy. The first indication is to respect it when it does not reach excessive proportions.”
The best treatment is, therefore, to help with our therapeutic resources to meet the objectives intended by the fever itself, to the point of making it unnecessary for having achieved them. That is, to act in favor of organic effort instead of suppressing it. Only when this is not enough do we have to resort to medication.
Therefore, the best treatment for a person with fever is to use our therapeutic resources to help meet the objectives intended by the fever itself, until it becomes unnecessary.
DRINKING FLUIDS AND RESTING
The lack of appetite that accompanies fever indicates that digestive overexertion should be avoided. Its purifying and detoxifying function suggests the need for a liquid diet of easy assimilation: provide liquids that drag toxins from the tissues, through the bloodstream, in order to expel them with urine or sweat, and hydrate well to recover these watery losses.
Therefore, in the event of a fever, especially if it is very high and with great sweating, it is advisable to eat natural fruit juices, especially citrus fruits that stimulate immunity (two or three glasses a day), purifying vegetable broths (onion, celery, cabbage …) Without oil or salt and with the juice of a lemon (two or three bowls a day), and three or four infusions a day of purifying plants (horsetail, sage …), sudorific (elderberry, ginger …) and relaxing (linden …), which stimulate cleansing and reassure.
All this can be accompanied by more specific preparations for the disease that causes fever (thyme in respiratory problems, chamomile in the digestive …). You would also have to drink during the rest of the day one or two liters of water depending on the amount of urine or sweat eliminated.
Until the fever disappears, it is not advisable to start a solid diet, and fruits and salads must be used for the transition to the usual diet.
If you have a low-grade fever, or the temperature does not reach 38 ° C, you can initially adopt an expectant attitude with rest and liquid diet. Rest always makes it easier for most energy expenditure to be concentrated on stimulating the immune system and internal self-regulatory mechanisms, as well as the combustion of toxins.
If it is a higher fever, we can help by causing sweating, wrapping up in bed with enough blankets and ingesting vegetable broths and infusions (especially the mixture of linden, elderberry and ginger) very hot.
Log wraps with cold water, lasting two or more hours, also cause sweating.
WASHES OR ENEMAS
A very effective measure in most patients with fever, especially if the origin is infectious, are washes or enemas, applied at a slightly cold temperature. Apart from refreshing and decongesting, intestinal cleansing removes waste and toxic substances that are most often part of the environment that feeds pathogenic viruses or bacteria.
To be effective an enema in an adult must be at least a liter to a liter and a half of liquid (in children a quarter of a liter or a half is enough). Irrigation is done with an infusion usually of thyme or chamomile, for its disinfectant and anti-inflammatory power.
Rest, liquid diet, sweating and cleansing enemas are measures that act in solidarity with the body and facilitate the disappearance of fever because they help it fulfill its function.
COLD RUBBING
Sometimes, when the fever is triggered at very high temperatures, 41 or 42 ºC, we can resort to a series of six cold rubs, one every half hour, or trunk wraps with cold water little drained and of short duration (twenty or thirty minutes), to lower the temperature temporarily with a symptomatic non-drug treatment.
The headache that sometimes appears due to congestion or the mobilization of toxins can also be relieved with enemas, with trunk wraps, applying a cold compress on the forehead or with the application of hydrotherapeutic socks (put on some socks of thread or cotton dipped in cold water and drained, others dry on top of them and a third of wool on the previous ones).
DRINKING FLUIDS AND RESTING
The lack of appetite that accompanies fever indicates that digestive overexertion should be avoided. Its purifying and detoxifying function suggests the need for a liquid diet of easy assimilation: provide liquids that drag toxins from the tissues, through the bloodstream, in order to expel them with urine or sweat, and hydrate well to recover these watery losses.
Therefore, in the event of a fever, especially if it is very high and with great sweating, it is advisable to eat natural fruit juices, especially citrus fruits that stimulate immunity (two or three glasses a day), purifying vegetable broths (onion, celery, cabbage …) Without oil or salt and with the juice of a lemon (two or three bowls a day), and three or four infusions a day of purifying plants (horsetail, sage …), sudorific (elderberry, ginger …) and relaxing (linden …), which stimulate cleansing and reassure.
All this can be accompanied by more specific preparations for the disease that causes fever (thyme in respiratory problems, chamomile in the digestive …). You would also have to drink during the rest of the day one or two liters of water depending on the amount of urine or sweat eliminated.
Until the fever disappears, it is not advisable to start a solid diet, and fruits and salads must be used for the transition to the usual diet.
If you have a low-grade fever, or the temperature does not reach 38 ° C, you can initially adopt an expectant attitude with rest and liquid diet. Rest always makes it easier for most energy expenditure to be concentrated on stimulating the immune system and internal self-regulatory mechanisms, as well as the combustion of toxins.
If it is a higher fever, we can help by causing sweating, wrapping up in bed with enough blankets and ingesting vegetable broths and infusions (especially the mixture of linden, elderberry and ginger) very hot.
Log wraps with cold water, lasting two or more hours, also cause sweating.
WASHES OR ENEMAS
A very effective measure in most patients with fever, especially if the origin is infectious, are washes or enemas, applied at a slightly cold temperature. Apart from refreshing and decongesting, intestinal cleansing removes waste and toxic substances that are most often part of the environment that feeds pathogenic viruses or bacteria.
To be effective an enema in an adult must be at least a liter to a liter and a half of liquid (in children a quarter of a liter or a half is enough). Irrigation is done with an infusion usually of thyme or chamomile, for its disinfectant and anti-inflammatory power.
Rest, liquid diet, sweating and cleansing enemas are measures that act in solidarity with the body and facilitate the disappearance of fever because they help it fulfill its function.
COLD RUBBING
Sometimes, when the fever is triggered at very high temperatures, 41 or 42 ºC, we can resort to a series of six cold rubs, one every half hour, or trunk wraps with cold water little drained and of short duration (twenty or thirty minutes), to lower the temperature temporarily with a symptomatic non-drug treatment.
The headache that sometimes appears due to congestion or the mobilization of toxins can also be relieved with enemas, with trunk wraps, applying a cold compress on the forehead or with the application of hydrotherapeutic socks (put on some socks of thread or cotton dipped in cold water and drained, others dry on top of them and a third of wool on the previous ones).
THE ORGANISM IS PURIFIED
The internal combustion that occurs in fever destroys morbid substances, disintegrating them and making possible their elimination through organic emunctories, that is, through sweat, urine or respiration.
This effect not only affects the possible toxins of bacterial, viral, drug, etc. origin that have just reached the body, but also the deposits of organic catabolic that have been generated for some time.
All this contributes to the fact that after fever the person usually recovers vitality and reaches a higher degree of health than before the febrile process.
FEVER ALLOWS THE BODY TO FOCUS ON THE PRIORITY
The anorexia or lack of appetite characteristic of fever reduces the energy expenditure of digestion and concentrates all the organic effort on increasing immunity and fighting aggression, infectious or not.
According to Manuel Legatee and his Thermal Doctrine, fever is also an aid mechanism to restore the body’s thermal balance by bringing blood from the internal organs, usually congested, to the surface of the skin, which is often poorly irrigated.