You give me fever...

[tcpip]

Nothing quite like being struck down with sickness in the fourth world is there?



I mean it's not as if you can wander down to the corner doctor and say "Hey, I reckon there's something wrong with me", whereupon they give you a script for some serious drugs, take some blood for testing and say "ring me back in a couple of days".

Nope, here's it's about 1 doctor per 10,000 people. Only the most serious, immediate and life-threatening problems even get looked at. And you can completely forget about mental health specialists.

So when struck down by a viriluent fever, the best treatment is treat yourself. And here's how it goes.

Thursay Afternoon: Starting to feel quite queasy. As the afternoon progresses, I notice my hands and feet going cold and my torso becoming hot. Vision blurry, dull headache. Finding it increasingly difficult to work - attempt to do document reading, but even that proves to be too much. Go home early.

Thurday Night and Friday: Hands and feet very cold. Body sweating, yet feels too cold to have the fan on. Headache absolute pounding - utterly impossible to sleep. Painful to open my eyes beyond squinting.

Working on the adage of "starve a fever", I restrict myself to small mouthfuls of water or tonic water. Still manage to consume 4 litres.

Friday Night: Visited by a work colleague wanting to make sure that I am still alive. Headache reduced to a dull roar. Sweating much reduced. Sleep only interrupted several times.

Saturday Morning: Headache nearly gone. No longer sweating. Feel confident enough to have a small amount of rice and fish. And a nice cup of English Breakfast Tea (ahhh, civilization!)

Go to work. (Yes, I'm as crazy as a coconut)

At least it didn't have the tell-tale signs of by joints feeling like their being crushed (dengue fever). Nor did it last for several days (e.g., malaria). The "starve a fever" strategy seems to have worked, although it was undoubtably assisted by my sturdy constitution. Nevertheless, not an experience I'd particularly care to repeat.

*shrug* I guess I wouldn't have come here if I didn't expect to get sick.

Comments

[missmalice.livejournal.com]

i'd never heard of 'starving-a-fever'. whacky.

i hope its all out of your system now *hug*

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

lafae, missmalice... thank you for your hugs, most appreciated believe me.

The "starve a fever" saying is two-part "feed a cold, starve a fever". It isn't to be taken to extreme by any stretch of the imagination, in fact most medical advice rejects it entirely.

The way I figure it, the general theory is if you have a cold, your body needs resources to fight it. With a fever there's not much point, indeed, you'll probably feel ill if you try to eat.

There is some (although hardly convincing) evidence that food consumption causes short term changes to the immune system - "starved" people produce more "front line" antibodies through the cytokine interleukin-4, which is good against short-term devasting ailments like fevers, whereas "fed" people produce more "reserve" white blood cells through the cytokine gamma interferon, which works against those relentless grinding ailments like the 'flu.

Again it's emphasized this shouldn't be taken to extreme. Of course, the reverse shouldn't be suggested either.. I had a frail friend make an wobbly visit on the third day of "starving a cold". She was most disconcerted to discover she'd just been making the situation worse.


c.f., van den Brink, G. R., van den Boogardt, D. E. M., van Deventer, S. J. H. & Peppelenbosch, M. P. Feed a cold, starve a fever? Clinical and Diagnostic Laboratory Immunology, 9, 182 - 83, (2002).

[angel80.livejournal.com]

That was informative. But doesn't flu give you a fever as well - whereas a cold doesn't. That's how I distinguish them anyway!

Anyway, whatever it was I had a couple of weeks ago responded well to a hot, slowly cooked stew.