Teorinfo ~ Who has never had a fever? We’re sure you’ve been there at least once. Maybe at first, you have a simple cough, or perhaps you feel fine.
Regardless, you may have felt your body temperature rise before feeling as cold as the Arctic. And strangely, even though we feel cold, we are often given ice packs to place on our foreheads.
So, what exactly happens when our body has a fever? Fever can occur when “invaders” such as bacteria or viruses enter and infect our body.
Remember how white blood cells are the body’s defence forces working to fight infection. But … what do these cells have to do with fever? Apart from secreting chemicals, white blood cells also produce protein during the process of fighting germs.
These proteins are called pyrogens. Pyrogens enter the circulatory system of a part of the brain called the hypothalamus. The hypothalamus is here to regulate our body temperature.
So, if you feel your body is too warm or cold, remember that it is all because of the hypothalamus. In the case of a fever, the pyrogens will “trick” the hypothalamus into thinking that our body is too cold.
Thus, the hypothalamus will raise the body temperature to a higher temperature. Our body temperature generally ranges from 36.5–37.5 ° C. When the hypothalamus is tricked, it increases the temperature that the body considers normal to more than 37.5 ° C.
Due to this response, the blood vessels in our skin constrict and constrict. This is so that our bodies can retain the heat, which causes the burning sensation you feel when you touch someone who has a fever.
If this response is insufficient and the body does not reach the desired temperature, it vibrates our muscles, and we start shivering to generate more heat.
This is why sometimes we get cold and feel cold when we have a fever. When bacteria or viruses have died, pyrogens will stop sending signals to the hypothalamus and body temperature will return to normal.
This is also done by releasing heat through methods such as sweating. This is why we often believe that after sweating, our fever will go down quickly.
