Fever

Question

Dear editorial team,
normally fever is in case of healthy persons something positive. Because it has the effect, that viruses and bacteria are not able to multiply anymore.
On the other hand I read, that fever has to be avoided in case of CF, because loss of electrolytes and dehydration impend. However it would be of advantage, to drink a lot, to avoid this dehydration in case of fever.
Is it therefore good or bad if you have fever as a CF patient?
Many thanks and many greetings,

Answer

Hello,

fever is a condition of increased body temperature, which occurs mostly as an accompanying effect of the defence against invading microorganisms or other substances recognized as forgein. Fever is in most cases not the cause of the illness but part of the answer of the organism to illnesses. According to this it is however a frequent practice to lower the fever symptomatically from a certain level on, in order to avoid supposed damage to the patient; this frequent practice does however not meet the latest state of research of the physiology of fever. The body is capable not to let the fever raise over certain borders (over 41,1°). Certain physiologic processes take place with which the body can restrict its fever reaction with the help of several endogenic anti-pyrogenes.
Many functions of the immune system, function of the white blood cells, which are important for the infection defence, as e.g. mobility, intake of bacteria, building of antibodies etc. can be observed increasingly at temperatures between 38° and 41°C and lower down in case of temperatures over 41°C. For this reason, that has been shown in studies, measures that lower the fever lead to a more complicated course of the illness for most infections. These explanations should justify the positive effect of fever like you described it. Increased body temperature leads to an increased loss of fluids of the body, let it be due to increased persipration, let it be due to increased loss of fluid via the breathing air. This has different consequences: the circulation and the heart are burdened more via this dehydration, and one has to counteract. This is true for all human beings. In case of CF patients, the dehydration would lead to an even more concentrated mucus, which is anyhow very tough and could then only be even harder coughed out. Furthermore, circulation and heart more burdend in case of CF patients, depending on the stage of the disease, so that high fever (over 38,5°C) should be avoided.

Yours sincerely,
von Mallinckrodt

30.06.2011