Fever Reducers and The Flu

I have written before about medicating fevers and I thought I’d revive this topic again. I just got done reading a very interesting article about the 1918 flu and the theorized link about it’s high mortality rate due to aspirin use. I think it is very important for us to heavily weigh the risks of using fever reducers. I know there have been multiple times where I myself had a very hard time letting a fever just run its course rather than intervene to help my child “feel better.”

Here is a link to the original article I wrote awhile back about FEVERS.

And here is the article that I just got done reading that I’d like to share with you. It’s worth the read.

I am going to continue doing more research on the topic and I will share my research with you when I am able to compile it together along with what you can do to safely aide the body to heal itself from the flu and other illnesses.

The link to the article is HERE, and also pasted below:

Did Aspirin Help Spread the 1918 Flu Pandemic?

Filed Under Big Pharma, Bird Flu, Pandemic, Swine Flu, Vaccines

” The primary defense which the human body has, to stop the spread of viral infections is to produce a fever. The fever is not a symptom of disease, but is actually the body’s primary anti-viral immune system.”

Humans have genetically developed a natural method to defeat viral infections called a fever. With a mild fever of 101 degrees the telomers on the ends of the RNA molecule cannot attach and the virus cannot reproduce itself, and the body’s white blood cells quickly destroy the invading virus. But the modern regular treatment for a fever from a cold
or flu is to reduce the fever to ease the discomfort. This is wrong.

The traditional knowledge of how to quickly and effectively cure a common cold or flu infection due to viruses has been known worldwide since ancient times. But you are not supposed to know that. You are not supposed to know that you can quickly cure a viral infection overnight by yourself and at no cost to you. You are supposed to believe that you need costly medications and medical treatments to cure new life-threatening diseases.

Best advice: do not try to lower a fever, it is your genetically derived natural human defense against any viral infection. Stay wrapped up and warm to cause a sweat. Drink fluids to replace the water lost by sweating. And within 6 to 8 hours overnight the cold or flu is gone.  Many older doctors knew this, which is the reason for the old docs
advice, go to bed, stay warm, drink fluids. But younger docs just  out of med school have been taught there is a drug or pill to treat everything. The result of using expensive pills or over-the-counter medications to reduce the fever from colds and flu is prolonged illness, the epidemic spread of viral diseases and the unneeded deaths of hundreds of thousands each year. Don’t buy them, don’t let them in the house.

MURDER IN THE MEDICINE CABINET

PART ONE The Deadliest Killer of the 20th Century, With More Deaths Than All the World Wars, Lurks Right Inside Your House, and Threatens to Take You and Your Family. The Story No One Told You.

In 1918, a virulent, never seen before, form of influenza seemed to suddenly appear. It seemed to kill within hours, and spread around the world within days. It seemed to appear simultaneously all around the world. Its spread was faster than any then known means of human travel.

In 2004, the Centers for Disease Control and the World Health Organization warned of repeats of such a rapid and deadly pandemic, through such variants of influenza as SARS and Bird Flu. But without knowing what caused the 1918 pandemic or how it spread, how can the CDC or WHO make such a claim? Unless they already know something they are not telling.

As yet no one has been able to identify the actual medical cause of the 1918 Flu, with only a few samples of a “bird-like” virus taken from only several cadaver tissue samples. But no sample is complete. And those are only one or two samples from among the estimated 20 to 40 million people who seemed to die mysteriously almost overnight. The 1918 Flu spread faster and was more deadly, killing more people than even the Plague and Black Death of the middle ages. Why does no one talk about it?

And even if the viral cause were identified, no one can explain the lightning fast spread of the disease. Maybe it wasn’t a disease after all. Many researchers have even looked at some world-wide phenomena, such as extra-terrestrial biology filtering into the atmosphere from outer space. Or maybe, the jet stream spreading disease-laden dust from
Asia all around the world in a matter of days. In an area of investigation where there seems to be no real facts and less logic, any “fringe theory” or “outre logic” is just as valid as any other. Maybe something about the 1918 Flu is being covered up. Something that we are not supposed to know.

Actually, there is another rather simple mundane solution to the medical mystery. There did exist in 1918 a then new technical invention by which the “disease” was spread almost at the speed of light. The “1918 Flu” as spread around the world almost instantaneously by telephone. Of course, that claim needs an explanation, and proof.

In the 1890’s an American chemist made an improvement on an old home folk remedy called Willow or Aspen Tea. It seemed to relieve the pains of old-age gout, arthritis and other assorted pains. But the evil tasting tea containing acetylsalicylic acid was so strong that it caused many people to have nausea and vomiting, along with the pain relief if
they could tolerate drinking the tea. This potion was later neutralized, synthesized and buffered, and then sold to the German Bayer company as a pain reliever.

I have researched the source and history of the name Aspirin and found no reasonable explanation has ever been found. I have found, instead, that the German Bayer company, in order to sell to both the American and European markets, used a name familiar in both markets. In America the common folk remedy form was called “Aspen Tea” made from boiling willow bark from the Aspen tree family. In Europe, the same home remedy was called “Spirain Tea” made from boiling the leaves of the common European shrub Spirae.

Both preparations were found to contain large amounts of natural acetylsalicylic acid, but unbuffered. Combining the common home-remedy folklore names Aspen and Spirain comes up with the Euro-American brand name Aspirin. My research is the sole source for the information about that unique derivation of the brand name.

The reason for the deep confusion and lack of any clear history about the trade name is that for almost a decade from 1905 to about 1915, the use of the trade name, and the source of the name Aspirin, was tied up in international courts. In the late 1890’s when Aspirin became available as an easy to use “pop a pill” replacement to the sour tasting Aspen or Spirain Teas, many people used it to relieve the pain of joint arthritis. Many users also discovered, quite by accident, a unique side effect. If you had a fever when you took the Aspirin, it also made the fever suddenly
go away. What a discovery! It appeared to be a cure for the the common cold and flu.

By 1905 many other drug companies were making acetylsalicylic acid preparations and calling it Aspirin, but they were selling it as a common cold remedy. Bayer took these other companies to court and sued over
illegal use of their trademark. Many people believe that Bayer lost the decision and lost control of the name Aspirin. Most believe that Aspirin is now a generic name such as Kleenex, Scotch Tape or Xerox. Not so. It was an odd court decision and a confusing compromise. By 1915 it was decided in court that Bayer had the exclusive use of the tradename Aspirin, if it were sold as a pain-relieving analgesic.

The court also found that the other companies could also use the name Aspirin, if in their ads and packaging, they claimed that their product was an anti-febril agent or a fever reducer. This odd court decision is still in use today. You can still buy Bayer aspirin to relieve pain, and on the store shelf right next to it is Nyquil, Aleve, Tylenol, Motrin,
Bufferin, Anacin and a whole long list of others, all containing aspirin or aspirin-like compounds and claiming to be treatments for Colds, Flu and Fever. Reducing fever was not in Bayer’s original patent claim. Bayer didn’t know in 1895 of the use of aspirin as a fever reducer and had not put that in their original trademark application.

And how does that strange court decision fit into the rapid spread of the 1918 Flu? The primary defense which the human body has, to stop the spread of viral infections is to produce a fever. The fever is not a symptom of disease, but is actually the body’s primary anti-viral immune system. The fever stops the telomeres on the ends of viral RNA from making copies of itself.

The telomeres are like a zipper which unzips and separates the new RNA copy within miliseconds, but the telomeres are temperature sensitive and won’t unzip at temperatures above 101F. Thus the high temperature of the fever, stops the flu virus from dividing and spreading. It is an immune system response which only mammals have developed to prevent the spread of viral flu infections, which mostly 99% come from the more ancient dinosaur-like earth life forms called birds. Almost all influenza is a form of “Avian Flu.” A few influenza forms come from other dinosaur-like
life forms, the modern reptiles, but these are usually classified as very rare tropical diseases, since that is where most reptiles live.

The doctors in the early 1900’s didn’t know about that, and even today few if any doctors are aware that fever is not a symptom of disease, but is the primary and only way for the human body to stop viral infections. If you stop or reduce the fever, viruses are allowed to divide and spread uncontrolled throughout the body. I have already described this process in detail in my articles posted in the Brother Jonathan Gazette in 2003, so I won’t go into detail here. Do a search on “SARS” on the Gazette and you’ll find the articles. Normally the progress of a flu is that a virus
enters the mucous membrane lining of the lungs, enters cells, then makes many copies of itself, which causes the cell to expand to such an degree that it bursts open. The new viruses then cloak themselves with a coating
taken from the old damaged cell wall, thus hiding themselves from the human body’s own T-cell antibody immune defense system. To the body’s immune system the new viruses simply appear to be pieces of the body’s own
lung tissue.

By creating a fever, the viral infection is slowed down sufficiently so that the body’s T cells can find the swollen infected lung cells, surround them and metabolize (literally eat) the damaged cell with strong acids which also breaks down the RNA viruses into basic amino acids. This effectively “kills” the viruses so that they can’t reproduce. But viruses are not living things, and you can’t kill something that’s not alive. All the body can do is destroy or dissolve the RNA amino acid chain which makes up the virus.

Not knowing this, most doctors treat the flu with aspirin or fever reducers, as a palliative treatment to ease the aches, pains, and delerium fever effects. The result is that within hours, the fever goes down and the patient feels much better. What neither the patient nor the doctor knows is that with only a normal 98.6F body temperature, the viruses are allowed to reproduce unchecked. Within 72 hours, the viruses have grown from one or two virus bodies to millions or billions. The body is now completely overwhelmed. But while taking aspirin or cold medications,
there are no symptoms or warnings of what is yet to come.

As a last resort the body tries to quickly flush the infection of billions of viruses from the lungs with massive amounts of T-cells, and fluid in the lungs to “cough out” the virus. This is called viral pneumonia. Soon within hours the patient is in the hospital. The doctors try to treat the now 105 degree fever with more anti-febril aspirins, or related medications to “treat the fever.” Then within another 24 hours the patient, suffocating and gasping for breath, is dead.

You should note that the original infection did cause a mild fever, aches and pains, which the patient “self-medicated” with over-the-counter products. For the next several days, the patient seemed to have no symptoms, but was actually growing billions of copies of influenza virus in his lungs. Then days later, the patient and doctor seem to see a sudden rapid case of viral flu infection that is now overwhelming the body. Is that what really happened? What caused the patient’s death? Was it the original flu virus, or was it the use of Aspirin to lower the flu fever which then shutdown the patient’s own immune system response? Obviously, the latter. So how did this cause the massive rapid spread of the 1918 Flu?

The Bayer court case had just been settled, and many companies other than Bayer, could now legally market aspirin to treat colds and fever. But then “The Great War to End all War” was on, and most aspirin products were going directly to the front lines in France to treat the soldiers in the diseased hell hole trenches of WWI.

The World War I medics knew that aspirin could quickly reduce a fever. If a soldier had a fever, the docs gave aspirin. Magically the fever went down, the soldier felt better and quickly went back to the fighting. Then three days later, the same soldier was back, now with severe pneumonia and died almost overnight.

No doctors then made the connection between aspirin and pneumonia death, since the trenches were filled with many other seemingly related diseases such as diphtheria or tuberculosis. Death and dying on the front line was
common, so no investigation was done. Aspirin seemed to be a god-send since it allowed sick soldiers to swiftly get right back into the fighting.

After the Armistice of November 11, 1918 the fighting stopped and the soldiers went home. The soldiers around the world announced the good news to their families back home. Most of the low-ranked doughboys had to wait till they got back to their homebase in Kansas, or wherever, to call home They couldn’t afford the costly trans-Atlantic deep sea cable phone rates. But when the troop arrived in Kansas, the call from sergeant Tom was something like: “Hey mom, I’m coming home. I’ll see yu and dad next Tuesday in Chattanooga. How’s everybody? Oh, Aunt Esther has a fever? Hey tell her to take some aspirin. Yeah, that stuff in the medicine cabinet for treatin’ the aches and pains. Tell Esther, we used it in France. Works right away and the fever is gone. OK see yu Tuesday….”

So what does Esther do? She tries the aspirin, but the old Bayer label only says its for “aches and pains” and says nothing about fevers. She takes it and magically the fever is gone, and she feels much better, almost cured. She’s so much better, she gets out the horse and buggy to go see her sister, Lucy in Mt Carmel, where Lucy and the kids are down with the fever. Mt. Carmel has no telephones and even no roads, only the buggy path to reach the outside world. But within hours of sergeant Tom’s phone call home, by word of mouth, everybody in rural Mt. Carmel is now taking aspirin to treat fevers. Since the new information came from a soldier, from the US Army and the government, it must be true!

Within a week of the 1918 Armistice, by newfangled telephone, trans-oceanic telephone cables, and even the experimental ship-to-shore shortwave radios using Morse code, the message was flashed around the world — “Have a fever? Take Aspirin. It worked in France, it’ll work for you.” That message spread at nearly the speed of light over millions of telephone lines all around the world. The news of the “miracle cure” even spread by word of mouth within a day or so, even to places with no phones nor roads. Mysteriously, a week later, doctors round the world now had hundreds of sick and dying patients. Nobody could figure out why. The patients themselves never reported that just the week before they did have a mild fever. But it was so mild that when they took some aspirin, it simply went away. Nobody made the connection. The doctors only saw, by November 24, 1918 thousands of very sick patients with high fevers, lungs filled with fluid, and swift overnight death.

The medical profession had never seen anything like it before, nor since. It seemed to occur simultaneously all around the world and even reaching into such out of the way places like Mt. Carmel with no telephones nor roads. How could such a massive fast-spreading killer disease exist? It didn’t. It wasn’t a disease. It was a new use for an old
home folk remedy which everybody already had in their medicine cabinet, Bayer Aspirin to reduce fever.

The medical profession, at a complete loss to explain it, simply called it the “Spanish Flu” or the “1918 Flu” or many similar names. It was a mystery with no known source, so it was assigned many place names. So far, nobody has been able to prove any single pathogen was responsible. And even if they did, they still can’t explain how it seemed to spread world-wide at almost the speed of light, clear around the world within a week.

To this day there is no explanation. But, now you know. The “disease” was not a single pathogen, but many of the hundreds of similar types of flu which are always existing at any time around the world. What was different in November 1918 was the many hundreds of thousands of almost simultaneous phone calls from the millions of returning sergeant Toms saying, “…tell Aunt Esther to take the aspirin. It worked in France. It’ll work for her…” Nobody traced the spread of the 1918 Flu to sergeant Tom. Nobody made the connection.

That very same source of disease still exists today. What is different today is that cold and flu products are sold and used all year long. This results in an estimated one million deaths from mysterious viral pneumonia reported every year, but also all around the year. In 1918, the new use of aspirin for treating colds and flu all started at the same time in November, thus creating the false impression of a sudden massive onset of a new disease. Even today SARS is not a disease. It is the improper use of a brand new high-tech flu fighter called Tamiflu. The FDA approved the use of Tamiflu several years ago. In 2003 it began to be used world-wide. But how is it used?

Many millions of people around the world still self-treat their own colds and flu with over-the-counter meds containing aspirin. Those are the most commonly sold medications in the world. The patient’s mild fever quickly goes away. They forget about ever having felt sick. Then several days later the patient sees the doctor and now has a high fever, bad cough and fluid-filled lungs. The doctor, using the new CDC and WHO guidelines, treats the hospitalized “flu” patient with the new high-tech Tamiflu. But how often and at what dosage?

The doctors do what they’ve always done for the past 100 years. Tell the nurse to stick a thermometer in the patient’s mouth, increase the Tamiflu dosage by 10cc’s every hour until the fever starts to drop. Then maintain that dosage level until the patient dies. Then blame the death on some new highly contagious lethal virus. Nothing new here. It’s the same old story, since 1918. The only thing different is that they give it a new name like SARS, or Bird Flu or whatever sounds nifty and high-tech. Even today, each year about one million people world-wide die from the very same “disease” which first appeared in the fall of 1918. Has medicine, in the last 100 years, turned this “contagion” from Pandemic by Phone, into Illness by Internet? Is it the rapid and continuous spread of misinformation that is still killing millions?

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The Great Debate: The Fever

There is nothing like a high fever to send a parent into panic mode. They call it Fever Phobia and it is real. This phobia is often fueled by myths and misinformation in regards to fever and it’s relation to seizures and brain damage. Common cultural beliefs and practices as well as pharmaceutical advertising also plays a role in how Americans view fever.

There are essentially two schools of thought in regards to the treatment of fever. Get rid of it and Let it be. The “Get rid of it” school of thought tends to operate on the basis of either a. they believe the fever to be dangerous or b. to avoid suffering or of course c. both. The “Let it be” school of thought argues that fever is your body’s natural way of coping with infection and to inhibit that process may prolong or exacerbate the infection your body is attempting to fight.

I grew up in the “Get Rid of It” category and have recently subscribed to the “Let it Be” category all though it is sometimes easier in theory than in practice. I will explain my shift and the reasons why I changed my perception and also link to some information but first I must preface by saying I am not a doctor, have never and will never be one. I don’t practice medicine. I practice motherhood. I am not an expert and I don’t give expert advice. I share my motherhood opinions and experiences and mine are not somehow elevated above yours, I only share them for those who are interested. If you need a doctor, see a doctor.

I don’t remember my parents ever being panicked about fever but I’m sure like most American mothers that my own mother worried over our fevers. I do remember taking fever reducers, like most children. As an adult it was an automatic reaction for me. Got a fever? Take some tylenol. I preferred ibuprofen, much faster. Then off to work you go, can’t have any sick time after all. Working in a call center for 5 years, I can not tell you how many people showed up looking like death. Americans are very interesting people in that regard. We tend to have no sacredness in terms of our body and it’s fragility’s (or it’s awesome abilities). If it can’t manage on its own then by golly there’s got to be something I can take that will get me going. We take fever reducers for fevers, cold pills for colds, sleeping pills for sleeping, anti-anxiety meds for anxiety, etc, etc. In America we treat the symptoms.

A fever is not a problem, it is a symptom. It is a symptom that your body is fighting off an infection. Fever is the body’s natural response to any infection. Infections can thrive at our normal body temperature but as the temperature rises it makes it very difficult for the infection to thrive and thus gives the immune system the ability (and time) to fight off the infection (usually taking 3-5 days, also the duration of most fevers).

When we reduce a fever we are eliminating our bodies natural defense mechanism and make it harder on our immune system to fight off the infection. It can actually make the illness last much longer than it would have, had the fever been left to do its job. This is sometimes why parents who have been giving their children Tylenol for a few days believe their children to be better (after all they are running around and eating like normal) and so they send them off to school or preschool only to have the child return home that afternoon, after the medication has worn off and the fever has been given enough time to rise again, just as sick (or sicker) than they were before. That is because fever reducers never take away the illness and they don’t make it go away faster either, they simply mask it. They trick your body into believing it is better.

This itself (the tricking of the body) can extend the illness. Take a moment and think about it. When you have a fever you generally feel awful. You don’t want to eat. You don’t want to walk around. The only thing you want to do is lay down and rest. It is your bodies way of telling you to slow down. It allows your body to conserve it’s energy into healing and not to be distracted with physical exertion or even digestion. Our bodies are intelligent. They were designed that way. When we circumvent that design it can have negative effects. People tend to run themselves ragged on fever reducers because they are cutting off their bodies messenger system and they do activities they never would have considered because they feel better, when in fact they are still just as sick (if not more) as before.

To see the effect in action you need only to watch your own child. In small children the change seems much more dramatic. My husband and I had to giggle after we gave our daughter a dose of ibuprofen. She had been a very sad looking thing with a high fever of 103. She was only content to lay on the couch and watch cartoons and sip water and apple juice. She wasn’t very interested in holding conversations and snapped at us when she did. Within 10 minutes of her ibuprofen she began chatting. At 20 minutes she sat up and was giggling and being silly and making jokes. At 30 minutes she was up off the couch and looking for a game to play. At 45 minutes she was literally running circles and trying to play chase with us. We had to beg her to sit down and not run and countless reminders that she was still sick fell on deaf ears. I’m sick? I feel fine. Let’s party!

Most parents once presented with the information that a fever is actually a good thing intuitively trust this knowledge. It makes sense, it is logical. What most people struggle with is the concept of comfort and the opposite of that, suffering.

No one (certainly not anyone reading this blog) wants to see their child suffer or to be in discomfort. We spend each and every day helping our children to avoid such situations. So when it comes to the idea of leaving a fever to act on it’s own, resulting in suffering, it can be very counter-intuitive. Part of this is simply our protective nature as a parent and even the common denominator of being a human and having empathy. However, I believe a large part of this is cultural and generational. We live in a world/culture/society that constantly sends us the message that we must never be upset, in pain, or to do without. If we are without we should have what we desire immediately. There is no such thing as waiting. We are told to live for the here and now. We must always have answers and if we don’t have the answers someone else must have the answer and they must share it with us. If it can be thought of, it can be done. If you can’t do it now we will find someone who can.

We may believe that we don’t fall prey to these notions but they are very ingrained. To activate this cultural/societal tendency simply mention to a general audience that you do not medicate a fever or cold, or suggest that you are planning on a natural birth. Suddenly you are masochistic, a sadist, or if it is in relation to your child you are negligent and cruel. It is very hard for people to conceive of pain and suffering as a matter of life. A matter of experience. A matter of fact. To go into this topic in depth could result in a novel and I’m sure they all ready exist. It isn’t my point. My point is that inevitably all humans will suffer and that not all suffering is bad. Not all suffering is cruel. In some ways to suffer is to know you are human.

Can it be taken too far? Yes, of course. Are there times a fever should be medicated. Yes, I believe so. In my own short lived “Let it be” experience I medicate a fever if my child is overly miserable and natural attempts (a lukewarm bath, less clothing, more clothing, a cool washcloth, a back rub, snuggling, etc) doesn’t help. I also medicate a fever if my child is unable to get any sleep. Sleep is very important when you’re ill. My own child will not sleep on her own when she is ill and both my husband and I are perfectly comfortable in allowing her to sleep with us when she needs it. In her most recent illness on night 4 we chose to medicate her fever because it had been wearing on her for 4 days and she had a rough time sleeping on the 4th night. The medication allowed her to get the deep sleep that her body needed.

Being a parent is about making judgement calls. Use your own judgement. Reduce a fever if you feel your child needs the comfort, however don’t reduce a fever just for the sake of reducing a fever unless your child has other underlying medical reasons that require it.

Most of the time a fever, in and of itself, is harmless. There are always exceptions. You need to know the signs to look for and be willing to contact medical help (the ER, your doctor, etc) when necessary.

A fever in a very young infant is always a cause for concern. A child who displays the following symptoms warrants a call to the doctor. The following (text in italics) is copied from Dr. Sears website. Treatment measures refer to giving the child acetaminophen (Tylenol) or ibuprofen (Motrin).

High fevers of 104 (40 Celcius) or higher that don’t come down to 101 or 102 (38.3 to 38.9 Celcius) with the treatment measures below.

Lethargy – this means more than your child just isn’t acting right or laying quietly in your arms. Lethargy actually refers to your child being limp, lifeless, unresponsive, or won’t make eye contact.

Irritability – this means more than just fussiness. A truly irritable child will cry for hours with minimal verbal interaction, and is almost impossible to console.

Meningitis – symptoms are high fever, stiff neck or pain in the back of the neck, vomiting, headache, bright light hurts the eyes. Before paging your doctor, you should also look up any other symptoms your child has, such as cough, vomiting, rash, etc and read those guidelines to determine your best course of action.

It is also important to know that if you give your child fever reducers and they are still acting seriously ill then it is important for you to contact your doctor. For example, no amount of fever reducer (trust me, I’ve had it) will get a person with pneumonia to feel better. However, a minor illness with a high fever, can be almost completely alleviated (symptom wise) with a fever reducer. It isn’t necessarily how high the fever is that you should be concerned about but with the child’s behavior when the fever is reduced. If you can’t reduce the fever (and you are trying) you need to seek medical help.

And lastly, all though admittedly the risk is probably very small, there is the possibility that these common medications are not as safe for our children (or ourselves) as we now view them to be. For example, in 2007 cold medicine was recalled for children ages 2 and under because of possible life threatening side effects. It is the reality of the situation that we sometimes don’t learn about very dangerous side effects from various drugs, both prescription and non-prescription, until after the fact. In my own situation, I sometimes wonder if my daughter’s exposure to numerous doses of infant tylenol while her immune system was still very immature has anything to do with the dye sensitivity that she now displays. It obviously can not be the only factor since millions of children consume the red dyed tylenol and not all of those children experience sensitivities to dye. But it has made me wonder if there is any connection at all. For those concerned, both Tylenol and Motrin offer dye free versions of their fever reducers. All though you may have to call a few stores to find it.

All in all, I am choosing to adopt the “Let it Be” attitude when it comes to fever. I don’t refuse fever reducing medications without exception but I do greatly consider the pro’s and con’s before choosing to circumvent the bodies natural coping mechanism. Like many other positions that I hold when it comes to medicine it is that modern medicine is a tremendous blessing when used with judgement and discernment and can sometimes be nothing short of a miracle but not all things modern in medicine equates to good medicine.

*Natural comforting methods NOT to use with a fever. The following comfort/treatment methods have been passed down and are NOT recommended to be used:

-A cold bath or a very hot bath. Use lukewarm water.

-Using rubbing alcohol on the skin

-Over bundling or underdressing. As a general rule of thumb keep the child comfortable. If the child is cold give the child a blanket. If hot, dress lightly. Do not make the child to shiver or to purposefully sweat.

-Forcing the child to eat against his/her will. Refusing the child food against his/her will. (If you’re worried about what he/she can tolerate try bland toast or crackers first). For sensitive tummies consider the B.R.A.T. diet (bananas, rice, applesauce & toast).

**Natural ways to comfort your child during a fever:

-Plenty of rest and lots of fluids

-Lots of attention and affection, cuddling, back-rubs, singing etc.

-A lukewarm bath

-A cool washcloth on the head

-Quiet activities such as reading to your child, doing a puzzle, watching a movie/television, drawing, etc

-Homeopathic remedies (I’ll let you research these on your own)

-Soft music

-If nursing, allow your child to nurse on demand. This may be more often than normal during an illness. Many babies/toddlers nurse a lot for comfort when ill.

-Anything else that brings your child comfort and creates a calm environment

LINKS REGARDING FEVER:

* Dr Reynolds: Myths & Facts about Fever

* Dr Jay Gordon: Dealing With Fever

* Dr Bob Sears: Fever

* Dr Jeffrey Snedecker: Childhood Fever – Friend or Foe?

* Think Like A Doctor: Is Tylenol A Good Thing?

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