11/17/2022
Let’s talk about fevers.
This may catch you as extreme, but hear me out — we don’t even consider treating fevers under 106.
You’re thinking “What?! This lady is crazy!” Right?🤔
Okay, bare with me...
Western medicine has convinced us that a fever is symptom of illness when in fact it is a sign of *healing*. Confused parents now quickly reach for tylenol, motrin and other over the counter "fever reducers". Reducing the fever has done nothing but inhibit the body’s natural immune response leaving the original infection untreated.
Parents are also often unaware of the many serious, SERIOUS dangers associated with tylenol, motrin and advil, Etc — ranging from life threatening disorders like Stevens-Johnson Syndrome (SJS) to things like higher risks of developing asthma.
One of the best ways to ensure your child's health is to allow him or her to get sick + to stay sick until the illness has run its course. At first hearing, this concept may sound unusual, yet standard childhood illnesses - colds & fevers, and even measles, chicken pox, mumps are important to one’s developing immune system and preventing these illnesses or or suppressing them with antibiotics + over the counter drugs like advil, motrin, tylenol etc. isn’t doing their immune system any favors.
During a fever, the body is creating warmth through increased metabolic activity. The body actually creates physical warmth in the form of fever to activate the immune system and bring the illness to a close by permeating the entire organism as a uniform warming process.
Iron is needed for bacteria to multiply and grow. With a rise in temperature, iron is removed from the blood and stored in the liver, disabling the rate at which bacteria and viruses can multiply.
Fever does create waste in the body so IF you want to treat a fever this is where you want to treat to help bring the body back into balance. Limit protein because it causes more urea, one of the waste products of fever, to build up. There is truth to "feed a cold, starve a fever." Let the fever fight for your child – it knows what to do with NO help from you.
Put on a hat to warm the feet. Wrap the child warmly. A lot of warmth is lost during fever, and failure to keep your child warm like so many often do, will result in the fever rising to make up for lost heat. The body has a goal temperature it needs to hit for a specific length of time necessary to inhibit the spread of the illness and will work to accomplish that, then the fever will break. When you use cool rags and undress them the fever will rise to make up for the lost heat, and this sudden fluctuation in temperature actually is what causes febrile seizures, NOT high temps alone.
The body knows what it’s doing, trust it to do its job. Skin to skin covered is great but not open skin to skin — wrap you + your baby up so the heat produced from the fever does not escape.
In neurologically normal children, the brain has an internal regulatory mechanism that does not allow fever to rise out of control, and that cut off point is normally between 105-106. Fevers produced by viral or bacterial infections just don’t climb to those levels of causing brain damage – a child would have to have a fever AND have an extreme environmental factor (like being left in a hot car) to reach 108* and suffer brain damage, or something like encephalitis or meningitis which would necessitate medical attention regardless. Newborns are an exception because most fevers in them point to these exact illnesses - which is why it’s often recommended to seek medical care for any fever in a newborn.
Pain and fever medications do not cure, reduce, or shorten illnesses and if anything, they lengthen them. They stress your child’s liver and kidneys when they are already ill. By causing a child to feel much better through the use of OTC meds, their body isn’t able to tell them to slow down and rest. Uninhibited, the immune system tells the body when it needs rest so it can focus on recovery. Masking the symptoms with drugs can also cover up important signs of worsening, which could delay important medical attention should it become necessary.
Although a fever signals that a battle is going on in the body, the fever is fighting FOR the person, not against.
Goes against everything you've heard doesn't it? Because most docs will tell you what you want to hear to keep the parent comfortable at the expense of the child because they are not trained to help a fever do its job — they are trained to treat the symptoms of a fever for relief.
The makers of Tylenol hand it out to hospital and doctors, saving them millions if not billions of dollars to ensure that once you leave the doctor or hospital mom or dad will dutifully stop and buy their own bottle of this magic potion the doctor says is perfectly safe for their kids without disclosing the countless studies showing it’s immediate and long-term risks.
Keep in mind, this pertains to the FEVER. If you or your child has symptoms that point to other issues such as ear infection, pneumonia, etc. by all means seek the treatment you see fit, but that can all be done without inhibiting the fever.