What is fever?

September 25, 2018

Face to face with the homeopath. The feverish child, even worse delirious, almost always throws the family into a panic. Fever is sometimes experienced as a disease in itself, but even more often and more correctly as a discomfort caused by a mysterious disease . Concerns that derive from the legacy of a very ancient cultural baggage, when fever was experienced as 'a disease that can kill'. Which, moreover, often, in those days, corresponded to the truth. We know today that fever, in the case of infectious diseases , can be interpreted as a defense reflex : the increase in body temperature inhibits bacterial and viral multiplication. But the febrile reaction can also be linked to chronic inflammatory diseases, autoimmune diseases or neoplastic diseases, drugs or neurological causes (such as school discomfort). The integration of knowledge in medicine helps us on the one hand not to intervene immediately against fever , on the other to try to investigate the triggering causes and, lastly, to intervene by not suppressing the symptom to the bitter end. The good doctor should try to understand how terrible the disease that triggered it is.

In children , trivially, fever is most often caused by infectious diseases of viral origin and the new pediatric guidelines indicate waiting at least three days , in the absence of obvious symptoms, before intervening with drugs or diagnostic investigations blood, urine...). Anti-febrile medicines such as paracetamol are only intended to relieve the child's discomfort related to the high temperature, but will not help healing . It is very important to combat any dehydration deriving from the feverish symptom, administering water and mineral salts. The use of physical therapies (tepid bath, sponge bath, ice pack) can often help control the temperature without resorting to medication. Then there is homeopathy , according to which, in order to find the right remedy for fever, it is necessary to relate the more or less high temperature to the individual symptoms of the patient (thirst or absence of thirst, presence or absence of perspiration, prostration or agitation, trembling, shivering, immobility, photophobia, irritability). The question to be asked specifically is: what is the substance capable of causing in the healthy subject a picture similar to the one presented by the patient? But the substances capable of causing a feverish picture are more than a hundred! So what to do? A first solution is to select only the medicines that clinical practice has shown to be the most frequently used: in this way , 9 remedies are obtained which cover the vast majority of the most usual febrile clinical conditions. Among these Bellandonna, Ferrum phosphoricum, Arsenicum album and so on. For all the remedies, the dosage is 3/5 granules, frequently repeated throughout the day and to be prescribed at a medium dilution (7-9 Ch) or higher (15 Ch) if neurobehavioral signs and symptoms are evident. All homeopathic remedies for fever should be administered more often the more intense the symptom. No adverse effects are known. Edited by Luisella Zanino | Homeopathic pediatrician