Fever? What should we do? The prevailing reaction to fever is to view it as the enemy and suppress it, but fever is evidence that your body is fighting. Sniffles, sneezes, coughs and fever are beneficial defenses. Sneezing and coughing clear the airways of harmful irritants while fevers help the body fight viruses and bacteria. It is not a by-product to suppress, rather it plays a beneficial, protective role in defending us against infection.

 

Mucous is the mechanism by which the body naturally clears infection. We blow our nose, cough and run a fever. Each of these reactions to infection is our friend, not our enemy! Coughing, though a nuisance, is the natural way to move infection from the lungs, while fever is designed to heat the body and kill the infection. When we interfere with these natural, protective mechanisms, we remove the very defense mechanisms that the Lord intended to help us heal and recover. Yes, support your immune response, but don't shoot yourself in the foot by dismissing your defenses. Reducing fever and suppressing coughs may actually allow the enemy to move deeper and become more serious, so that a full recovery may take longer.  

 

Susan Markel MD wrote: "The pervasive belief that fever is dangerous and must be suppressed disregards the scientific evidence demonstrating its beneficial role in inflammatory diseases. The immune system depends on the fever to accomplish myriad tasks when gearing up to fight infections. Numerous studies have shown that fever enhances the immune response by disabling bacteria and viruses. Also, with a rise in temperature, iron is removed from the blood and stored in the liver, further disabling the rate at which bacteria can multiply." (1)

 

Dr. Robert Mendelsohn wrote: "Fevers produced by viral or bacterial infections will not cause brain damage or permanent physical harm. Fevers are a common symptom in children and are not an indication of serious illness unless associated with major changes in appearance and behavior or other additional symptoms such as respiratory difficulty, extreme listlessness, or loss of consciousness. The height of fever is not a measure of the severity of the illness. A child who appears very ill with a fever of 101°F would be much more of a concern to me than a child who feels fine, is drinking and playing, but has a fever of 105°F." Scientific evidence does not support the practice of reducing fever. (2)

 

While the body is fighting, be sure the patient rests and is drinking enough filtered water and liquids to stay hydrated. Recovery time is shortened when the body is adequately hydrated and allowed to put all its energy into fighting.

Fever (Calcium lactate supplement) by Dr. Ronald A Saltman D.C.
Fever is a key component to help your body fight off a number of infections. Fever needs calcium to fully mount an immune response, and the easiest way for the body to get calcium is from the bones (the immune response/fever leaches out the calcium). By providing a calcium lactate supplement when a fever presents, we give the body what it needs and the requirement to leach calcium from the bones is much less or eliminated. We facilitate healing and feel less achy. Dr. Saltman writes: "For children who are still on a bottle, two to four tablets (10 grains) can be dissolved in non-fluoridated, non-chlorinated water. The fluorine or chlorine in the water will bind with the calcium and make it not free. If you give your child soy milk, it will dissolve in that very easily. For older children or adults, taking it with juice or water on an empty stomach is preferable. These dosages can be taken every hour or two until the temperature returns to normal."

Nutrition Must-Haves During Colds and Flu by Judy Converse

Tylenol / Acetaminophen - Exacerbates illness
American Chemical Society Glutathione Research Study 
    This research by the  is very important to understand. Glutathione (a tripeptide consisting of cysteine, glycine, and glutamate) is the most abundant molecular weight antioxidant. It plays a crucial role in antioxidant defense against oxidative damage of cells from reactive oxygen species (ROS) and is also involved in the regulation of various metabolic pathways essential for whole body homeostasis (balance). In a nutshell, the study found that [2020 illness] patients with moderate and severe illness had lower levels of glutathione, so basically, glutathione deficiency exacerbates [2020] illness. Acetaminophen (Tylenol) lowers glutathione. When people take Tylenol to reduce fever, aches and pains, they inadvertently also reduce and hinder the body’s natural ability to fight by depleting their body of a critical component the Lord provided to fight infection.
    "When the antiviral activity of GSH [glutathione] is taken into account, individuals with glutathione deficiency seem to have a higher susceptibility for uncontrolled replication of [2020] virus and thereby suffer from an increasing viral load. The severity of clinical manifestations in [2020 ill] patients is apparently determined by the degree of impaired redox homeostasis attributable to the deficiency of reduced glutathione and increased ROS production. This assumption can be supported by our findings. In particular, [2020 ill] patients with moderate and severe illness had lower levels of glutathione, higher ROS levels, and greater redox status (ROS/GSH ratio) than [2020 ill] patients with a mild illness.”
Acetaminophen study: Acetaminophen decreases intracellular glutathione levels and modulates cytokine production
Acetaminophen study: Acetaminophen Toxicity