The ear thermometer is a totally inaccurate measure of temperature in the body.
Summary of a talk by Dr Jeff Hasday
MD, PhD of the Maryland School of
Medicine, leading professor of body temperature and fever
The temperature of a person is regulated
by the hypothalamus which has a firing rate that increases as the body gets hot
and slows down when in the cold. To
maintain a normal body temperature of 37°C there has to be equal amounts of
gaba and glutamate to fire the neurons.
Fevers activate the endocrine and immune
system. Suppressing fevers by using
antipyretic agents masks the underlying condition and therefore prolongs the
infection. Antipyretic drugs are only
used for a patient’s comfort and it is advisable to let the fever continue so
as not to mask the underlying medical condition.
External cooling, when you submerge the
patient in a bath of tepid water or you use ice, cold wet sheets and a fan, is
a very costly metabolic exercise. The
only time you would attempt to bring down a patient’s temperature by these
means is if the person is suffering from heat stroke. (This was a very
eye-opening message. I think most of us try to bring temperatures down in some
way or another). Two things can happen
when you do nothing to bring down a temperature. Small children can have convulsions and old
people can go dilly. Only then is an
antipyretic really necessary.
There is an enzyme called PG2 which
increases the temperature of a patient and an antipyretic inhibits this enzyme;
which is necessary for healing the medical condition.
Another quite shocking fact is that the
thermometers used today in hospitals that are used to take an ear reading are
the most unreliable instruments in the assessment of a fever. Each ear will give a different reading; and putting
the ear thermometer on the cheek with give another reading. The old mercury mouth or anal thermometers are
far more accurate.
Sir William Osler said in the early 1900’s,
“Fever is natures might engine that helps recovery from diseases”.
Everybody gets fevers when they are ill,
including those with autoimmune diseases.
However, there is a group of people who
never get a temperature and their normal body temperature can be as low as 34
or 35°C. This group are known as the
Primary Immune Deficiency/hypogammaglobulinemia/CVID and others which have
almost no or no normal immune function. This presents a huge problem for people like
me because I can be as sick as a dog and have no fever. The protocol at all hospital emergency rooms
is that if your infection markers are up and you have a fever, you are put into
hospital. This does not happen to
me. I have to go back time and again and
only when x-rays are taken am I treated as seriously ill. I have never come across a single doctor who
understands this phenomenon in patients with the above illnesses. My normal temperature is 35.6°C. Anything above that is a fever for me. The reason we do not get fevers is because we
have too much gaba and not enough glutamate in the hypothalamus, and therefore
the firing rate of the neurons is impaired. We do not have normal febrile response from
the neurons of the hypothalamus. Some of the sickest people will have no fever
at all. CVID patients do not have a normal febrile response (firing rate of
neurons).
The problem with CVID and related disease
patients is the response they get at emergency hospitals. It would be a good idea to get a letter that
you carry with you from your Primary Physician to give to the ER doctor
explaining that you have a below average temperature and to take into account
that a few points above your “normal” should not be ignored and should be seen
as a fever.
Posts
1 comments:
The Forehead and Surface Infrared Thermometer from SantaMedical is specially designed to obtain the most accurate temperature readings of tear ducts or the forehead. The temperature on the forehead reads from 1” to 4” away. The temperature is displayed on the LCD screen and it has a backlight for enabling the night time usage and it can even display results in total darkness. The thermometer features the audio alarm for alerting whenever the person is suffering from the high temperature.
Post a Comment