Lets talk something about Pyrexia (fever )

Had a lecture on Pyrexia of Unknown Origin (P.U.O) today, which kinda reminds me of U.F.O., very interesting actually, might also be among the most interesting lectures in the Tropical Medicine round for me. Ouh, and if you're wondering, the lecture's title means fever (demam, hararah, sukhuniah) with unknown cause, not really unknown actually, more like a tricky, deceiving or challenging symptom for a correct diagnosis.

Normally, fever is actually a symptom of inflammation in the human body due to infection by most commonly bacteria or less common, virus. But in case of P.U.O, the fever is actually a symptom of something totally unexpected like neoplasia (tumour, cancer), drugs, psychological, and even a factitious (fake) fever due to one's extreme laziness to go to work. But hey, I'm not here to write in details about P.U.O. or even U.F.O., you can google both of them, but I'm here to share some interesting tips regarding fever that I got today from my professor who is a specialist in Tropical Medicine and Infectious Disease, and that includes anything related to fever, I think I might as well call him a fever specialist, Pyrexiologist perhaps? haha.

First tip, commonly when anyone has fever, you will put a wet/damp towel on his/her forehead, do you know that this act is actually wrong and only very slightly beneficial? The main aim in improving fever is to reduce the temperature of the blood, not the brain, and even if your intention is to reduce the frontal cortex's temperature, it won't work due to the thick skull, unless if you crack his head open, then it might actually work! The right action is to put the wet/damp towel at few places with rich blood supply close to the skin, and that would be around the neck (left and right), the axilla (armpits) and the inguinal regions (the groin, the junction between the trunk and lower limbs). Put the towels there and the temperature will reduce significantly.

Second tip, do you know that once a fever reach 40 degree centigrade, no drugs will work for the patient anymore? So giving aspirin or paracetamol to the patient at that time is somewhat useless since the body is too stressed to the extent that it is paralyzed from the drug's actions. The quickest way is to put the patient in ice bath to reduce the temperature to 39 degree so the drug can work. Have you ever watch Universal Soldier (1992) starring Jean Claude Van Damme where the modified soldiers were put in ice bath to heal the injuries and prevent overheat? yeah, it's something like that.


Third and last tip, have you ever heard that when you got a fever, you should wear thick clothes and stay in thick blaket to 'sweat out' the fever? This is actually very wrong and very bad, when you have fever, you're suppose to take off your clothes/wear thin clothes and stay under the fan. But you may think "I have sweat out the fever before, it worked lah!", the truth is, when you produce sweat, later on the sweat will be evaporated into the thin air taking away some of the heat from your body, remeber the Physics that you learn in high school? But the main problem is, during the sweating process, your body is producing more heat while it is already feverish. The body might as well scream, "Are you crazy?! I'm already damn hot due to this fever and you want me to produce more heat???" So how to achieve the same effect from the sweat without putting more stress on our body? Easy maa, just put on a pair of wet clothes and stay under the fan, faster and easier meh...

Well, that's all I think, hope you gain something from this little sharing, feel free to add, ask or comment on anything, even my grammar, hahaha.

Thank you for reading, have a nice day and weekend! Ouh, and stay away from fever!