One of us will die, but that’s a sacrifice I’m willing to make.
“The disease can’t kill me if I kill myself first”
40+ is where it gets really interesting, introducing the possibility of getting delirious with weirdly unsettling hallucinations.
Don’t fuel them by watching TV is all I’m gonna say.
I had 40-41 as a kid and it was so surreal. Especially because it was mod summer
Once had the flu with a fever of 106-107(almost 42c)…I was taken to the hospital and the doctor literally threw me into an ice bath… I was crying and he said “I’m sorry but you will be dead soon unless we drop that fever”
I had to continue taking ice baths at home because the fever kept creeping back up to that range. They’re not fun…
While 104 is contact an MD range.
Fevers have to get to 108F to cause brain damage. 106F is definitely in the seek treatment range!
But normal fevers between 100° and 104° F (37.8° - 40° C) are good for sick children.
Cite: https://www.seattlechildrens.org/conditions/a-z/fever-myths-versus-facts/
so chemo is just fevers revenge
That’s actually exactly how chemo works. It microwaves your cells on a molecular level!
Edit: turns out I confused it with radiation therapy!
Absolutely not
I think they may have been thinking of https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radiation_therapy?
It feels so weird to me that the small change in degrees might actually kill a virus. I mean, wouldn’t all viruses by now have become accustomed to “warmer climates”?
Or is it a cat / mouse game, our bodies being able to heat up more and them getting more fire resistant by the year. Was a fever less hot a couple of hundred years ago?
I am not an expert but I believe the temp threshold is for when proteins denature due to the ambient heat overcoming the strength of the bonds (mostly h-bonding i believe) that hold the protein in its specific tertiary structure and when you exceed it the proteins unfold/break
I read that this is a common misconception: the high heat is not enough to denature any proteins (else it would kill you too) and, what’s more surprising, it actually makes viruses/bacteria more active. But it also makes your immune system more active, with an overall win in effectiveness over the microbes, which is what makes it useful.
It’s in the air if viruses are even alive, you’re giving them way too much agency in the matter.
Viruses do adapt and mutate though. Look at all the various strains of H1N1 and SARS-COV-2.
Just because they don’t reproduce without a host cell doesn’t mean evolution doesn’t happen. If a trait emerges that is beneficial to future generations, viruses carrying that trait can infect more cells and spread further.
Usually it’s evolution itself that people give too much agency to. Mutations are a crapshoot. They can be beneficial or they can cause birth defects, sterility, prevent reaching sexual maturity, or make finding a mate excessively difficult. Or all of the above.
Heat resistance generally reduces a pathogens fitness at normal temps. The human body is also far more heat resistant than individual viruses thanks to being a big multi cellar organism with many expendable cells. A fever isn’t your only method of dealing with viruses either, you’re just stacking the deck against them do your immune system has a better time.
