Fevers [was: Interesting not-so-acute case
Posted: Sat Oct 07, 2006 4:38 am
I'm curious about the fever issue. I was taught that fevers are almost
never harmful (exceptions would be: heat stroke; certain types of
brain injury [which in some cases could result from the disease itself,
so I would never make light of watching and perhaps regulating the temp
in a *severe* febrile disease]; extremely severe disease, where the
body is close to being overwhelmed; and/or patient especially weak or
depleted already. My clinical experience is not broad (more than ten
years, but only perhaps a couple dozen individual "patients"), so I do
not want to give much weight to my own experience with this, but thus
far the only situations where I have felt any need of bringing down a
fever, is when that would help the person (in each case so far it's
been a child) to sleep, so that the parents (usually myself!) can sleep
too, and have a clearer head to proceed more appropriately in the
morning.
I've never really seen much value in even *knowing* the temperature
(unless it were one of the exceptional situations above), because...
Well, for instance, when my older child was little, she got sick a
*lot*, and several times very severely, but I don't think she *ever*
threw much of a fever, just because she wasn't "vital" enough. So the
signs that would make me worry--and call our homeopath pronto--were
signs such as listless, not eating/drinking, pallor, etc.
down, it would be violent onset, *high* fever (we clocked 104 F on
one), and would crawl into a corner and sleep--then wake up half a day
later, all better and ready to play. I constantly fussed over the
first child--despite lack of much or any fever--but never did much of
anything for the second, simply because all he clearly *needed* was
just to be left alone to recover, high fever and all. With that mama's
"intuition"
or something, I always found it very easy to tell
the difference between a sound and healing sleep (fever and all),
versus otherwise.
I was taught--and have since read in various places--about the
tremendous *healing* effects of fever; how it creates a less-friendly
environment for pathogens, and at the same time activates some of the
body's "reserve troops" for defense. For myself, when I'm down with
something, most of the time the very best thing I can do to kick it, is
a long, hot soak, and "sweat it out". Basically, creating an
"artificial fever", and wow does it work for me! (And of course a
time-honored "folk remedy".) I remember reading somewhere a study
showing that use of Tylenol (which in this case would have been used as
a febrifuge) in chickenpox was found to *prolong* the illness by a few
days--anyone else read that?
So, I am curious! Would you (Hahnemannian, and also anyone) consider
it useful to bring down a fever only under certain circumstances
(similar or different to those I listed above), or do you not find
fevers to be useful to recovery? And, why use a drug rather than, say,
gently sponging the wrists...
As far as a high fever "consuming" the remedy, well, then why not just
give it higher and more often... I would assume that the healing would
be more thorough that way, but perhaps I'm wrong? Or perhaps my
complacency will be humbled once I've treated more *truly* sick
people...
Thanks for the thoughts,
Shannon
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
never harmful (exceptions would be: heat stroke; certain types of
brain injury [which in some cases could result from the disease itself,
so I would never make light of watching and perhaps regulating the temp
in a *severe* febrile disease]; extremely severe disease, where the
body is close to being overwhelmed; and/or patient especially weak or
depleted already. My clinical experience is not broad (more than ten
years, but only perhaps a couple dozen individual "patients"), so I do
not want to give much weight to my own experience with this, but thus
far the only situations where I have felt any need of bringing down a
fever, is when that would help the person (in each case so far it's
been a child) to sleep, so that the parents (usually myself!) can sleep
too, and have a clearer head to proceed more appropriately in the
morning.
I've never really seen much value in even *knowing* the temperature
(unless it were one of the exceptional situations above), because...
Well, for instance, when my older child was little, she got sick a
*lot*, and several times very severely, but I don't think she *ever*
threw much of a fever, just because she wasn't "vital" enough. So the
signs that would make me worry--and call our homeopath pronto--were
signs such as listless, not eating/drinking, pallor, etc.
down, it would be violent onset, *high* fever (we clocked 104 F on
one), and would crawl into a corner and sleep--then wake up half a day
later, all better and ready to play. I constantly fussed over the
first child--despite lack of much or any fever--but never did much of
anything for the second, simply because all he clearly *needed* was
just to be left alone to recover, high fever and all. With that mama's
"intuition"
or something, I always found it very easy to tell the difference between a sound and healing sleep (fever and all),
versus otherwise.
I was taught--and have since read in various places--about the
tremendous *healing* effects of fever; how it creates a less-friendly
environment for pathogens, and at the same time activates some of the
body's "reserve troops" for defense. For myself, when I'm down with
something, most of the time the very best thing I can do to kick it, is
a long, hot soak, and "sweat it out". Basically, creating an
"artificial fever", and wow does it work for me! (And of course a
time-honored "folk remedy".) I remember reading somewhere a study
showing that use of Tylenol (which in this case would have been used as
a febrifuge) in chickenpox was found to *prolong* the illness by a few
days--anyone else read that?
So, I am curious! Would you (Hahnemannian, and also anyone) consider
it useful to bring down a fever only under certain circumstances
(similar or different to those I listed above), or do you not find
fevers to be useful to recovery? And, why use a drug rather than, say,
gently sponging the wrists...
As far as a high fever "consuming" the remedy, well, then why not just
give it higher and more often... I would assume that the healing would
be more thorough that way, but perhaps I'm wrong? Or perhaps my
complacency will be humbled once I've treated more *truly* sick
people...
Thanks for the thoughts,
Shannon
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]