🔥Fever?! Let it BURN!🔥

Holistic Tips to Manage & Support Fevers, An Innate Biological Medicine

Oh the dreaded fever. A microscopic invisible internal boogie man has become the reputation and fate of the health promoting, toxic purging, infectious disease burning process of the glorious fever!

Most people nowadays are so afraid of fevers, but why?

A fever is a natural physiological process that has many benefits and rarely any real risks.

Fevers may be problematic for those with severely compromised health but as outlined here in Seattle Children’s Hospital excellent piece on Fevers: Myth vs. Fact, letting fevers burn runs very little risk and has tons of benefits for both short term and long term health.

I have written more extensively about the Healing Power of Colds/Flus (and Fevers) here.

What are the benefits of fever?

A fever is a SUPER medicine, innate to our biology.

It is a natural physiological process that our bodies wisely invoke in order to activate our immune systems and self-healing functions. Fevers turn on the body’s immune system, increase white blood cell counts to deal with foreign invaders and create an inhospitable environment for the reproduction and survival of these invaders.

By activating and using our immune system we also build long term health and contribute to the health of all other vital organs and systems as the immune system is interrelated and inter-functioning with all other systems in our body.

(Watch Video on Why Do We Get Sick?: The Metaphysics of Dis-ease)

When our immune system is challenged thus increasing its learnability, growth and function; our neurological, digestive, endocrine and cardiovascular systems are also built up in strength.

The fever is an innate gift that has been widely misunderstood by industrialized medicine, which focuses mostly on the suppression of symptoms.

However, the suppression of a fever by the use of anti-fever and anti-cold/flu medications like Tylenol/Paracetamol and Motrin, is in fact counter-productive to the disease process and to the goals and functions of the immune system.

When we shut down a fever with suppressive over-the-counter medications, we are essentially telling the immune system “Nope, you got it wrong. What you are doing is incorrect, stop that!” We are stunting the growth and learning of the immune system.

Logic follows then, that if fevers benefit the growth and learning of vital systems and organs like the neurological and endocrine systems vis a vis the activation of the immune system, then stunting the function of the immune system will have subsequent detrimental effects on the growth and learning of other vital systems as well. And this is not what most parents want to do for their kids or for their own bodies, right?

Allowing a fever to burn also helps our children to move through an infection quicker. When we are constantly stopping a fever and not allowing our immune systems to work to stop the infection, then we are NOT healing.

And if we mask the symptoms with a suppressive OTC medication and the child then feels well enough to go play and not rest, then we are now not only deactivating the immune system but also not giving our body the time to rest and heal.

When we give a suppressive OTC medication, we’re only stopping symptoms and stopping the immune system from doing it’s primary work, which is self-individuation and to learn how to get better when it gets sick. Our immune systems cannot learn self-differentiation and how to get better when we ignore or disappear our bodies signs and symptoms and consistently deactivate our innate immune function when there is a fever.

Read more about the Psychology of The Immune System & Immune System Education.

In homeopathy, we can measure a person’s health based on the degree to which the body is able to throw fevers, to get sick and to get better. The ability to throw a high fever is a sign of a strong vital force. In fact, it is a sign of decreased health if one is only able to throw a low fever or not get one at all.

People who are not able to get fevers tend to have chronic conditions and have not been well for many years. Thus, not only do we want to see fevers as homeopaths, but we like to see high fevers! :) In fact, it is an excellent sign if during an actual flu or cold, a person who at first does not have a fever and has very low energy, then gets a fever and increased energy after taking a homeopathic remedy. This means the body is healing because the immune system is working and working strongly and effectively. This is what we want. We want strong working immune systems!

If you are worried about high fevers or seizures please refer to Seattle Children’s Hospital excellent piece on Fevers: Myth vs. Fact.

Of course as a parent I understand that we don’t want our children to be uncomfortable and that seeing them sick can often be a cause for stress, fear or anxiety for us.

I also understand that the demands of work and society doesn’t allow us the time to be sick and to get better and that parents are often needing to give suppressive fever medications just so they can get to work and make ends meet.

I understand that this is in fact a very nuanced public health problem; that we have socioeconomic and medical systems designed to allow ONLY for quick-fix solutions.

But unfortunately, that quick-fix mentality has devastated us and our earth and it is really our generation’s responsibility to start moving out of that paradigm into models and practices that uphold the innate intelligence of our bodies and of nature. It is on us to begin to work with nature not against it. And the best part is, there are already systems out there that honor this alternative paradigm.

Read more about the benefits of fever here.

The following are some natural non-suppressive ways to support and encourage our children’s natural immune system responses during fevers whilst also aiming to keep them comfortable and safe.