Most of us were raised to take a fever-reducing medication as soon as you start to feel bad and your temp raises above 98.6. What I want to share today is a different option. I’m a Chiropractor, not a Medical Dr., so I want to preface this with the fact that you are responsible to discern when some situation is a medical emergency with a fever that’s too high. But, the purpose for the fever is to get rid of something coming against the body, and it’s a good thing, a God-designed way for the body to protect itself.
It’s also uncomfortable. It’s very uncomfortable to watch your child suffer with sickness and fever, which is what inspires most parents to grab fever-reducers ASAP. Most people don’t realize that God gave fevers to obliterate bacteria and viruses within the body. When we then swoop in immediately to obliterate the fever with meds, guess what that does to your body’s immunity? It’s suppressed.
The other option is to let the fever to its job. The raising of the internal body temperature literally helps the body to burn out the invader. When this happens, the body is actually getting stronger, the cell-mediated and humoral parts of the immune system, when un-suppressed, get stronger and more robust. This makes the body more able to overcome sickness the next time.
But, that’s not been modern-medicine’s recommendation for a few generations now. When we’re trained to suppress the immune system over and over and over, you might begin to assume what that does to immunity over decades of time. The bottom line is – our bodies were created fearfully and wonderfully, the more you give your body the requirements for health & healing, the better outcomes you get for a lifetime. Fevers are for our good, embrace the discomfort for the short-term and get healthier body for the long-term; using wisdom to know when it’s time to intervene.