Is it correct to cover your body to reduce fever by sweating?

Since fever is a very common symptom, but it is very harmful to the human body, people in modern society have discovered many ways to treat fever. For example, applying a towel soaked in cold water to the forehead can reduce fever, and some massage methods can also have a very good fever-reducing effect. Many older people say that covering your face with a blanket can reduce fever. Is this really effective?

Can I sweat when I have a fever?

It is not advisable to cover your sweat when you have a fever. The more you cover yourself up, the hotter it gets, which can easily cause heat syndrome and induce high fever convulsions. Because covering up and sweating is done by first raising the body temperature, passively sweating, and then lowering the body temperature. Therefore, before the body temperature drops, there will be a process of rising body temperature. If the body temperature rises too high, it may cause cerebral edema or even coma, especially in children and the elderly.

The harm of sweating fever reduction method

Generally speaking, when an adult's body temperature exceeds 38.5℃, they will feel obviously uncomfortable. At this time, covering themselves with a quilt to sweat may have two results: sweating or not sweating. If you don't sweat, your body temperature will be "covered" higher and higher. The rise in body temperature will cause a great burden on organs such as the heart, and in severe cases it may even be life-threatening. However, even if you sweat, the evaporation of a large amount of sweat will take away water and inorganic salts in the body, causing physical weakness. If you do not replenish enough water, you may even collapse.

For example, for people with weaker constitutions, it is best not to use profuse sweating to achieve the purpose of cooling down. Profuse sweating will take away too much water, which will make people who are already weak even weaker.

For young children, sweating is even more dangerous. Because children's nervous systems are not yet fully developed, too high a body temperature may cause them to have febrile convulsions; covering themselves up too tightly may cause a disease called "heat syndrome", in which children will have convulsions, coma, and in severe cases, respiratory and cardiac arrest, and even death. When a child has a fever, what you should do first is to unbutton the child's clothes to dissipate heat, and then use physical cooling methods such as cold wet compresses on the head and wiping the body with warm water.

How to reduce fever correctly

1. When the body temperature is below 38.5℃:

After discovering that you have a fever, in addition to seeking medical treatment promptly, the fundamental way is to "dissipate heat", which is the opposite of "covering". When the body temperature is below 38.5℃, in a room without convection wind, you can use physical methods such as bathing and warm water bath to cool down. At the same time, let the patient drink small amounts of hot water multiple times to help the body dissipate heat.

2. When the body temperature exceeds 38.5℃:

When the body temperature exceeds 38.5℃, the limb circulation will often deteriorate, and the head may indeed feel hot and the hands and feet may feel cold. However, you cannot simply cover the patient with a blanket or add clothes. The correct approach is to slightly unbutton the patient's clothes to allow sufficient heat dissipation, and keep the hands and feet appropriately warm. While taking a two-pronged approach of hydration and physical cooling, use antipyretic drugs appropriately as prescribed by your doctor to achieve the purpose of cooling down.

Tips

Why does the human body feel much more comfortable after sweating? Generally speaking, a fever is a battle between the human immune system and the disease. When the immune army eliminates the invading substances, the human body's functions return to normal. At this time, the body temperature regulation center of the hypothalamus will issue a command to gradually reduce the elevated body temperature to normal. Therefore, the "sweating" phenomenon occurs, and the evaporation of sweat takes away the body's heat, restoring the patient's body temperature to normal. In other words, after the human body defeats the disease, it restores its body temperature to normal through sweating, rather than what people think (sweating can cure diseases).