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Posts Tagged ‘bronchitis’

Feverish Thoughts

June 13th, 2008

I am slowly recovering from the bronchitis that has had me out of action for nearly two weeks now.  The first week was characterized by a fever ranging from 100.5 to 102.2 F (38 – 39 C).  The common medical wisdom these days, as I have heard it from a number of doctors, is that fever is a positive reaction of the immune system to an infection. To put it in lay terms, the body seeks to kill the infection by burning it up.  Therefore many doctors now recommend taking nothing for a fever, unless the patient is uncomfortable, or of course, unless the temperature rises dangerously high.  So if you can’t stand the body aches, or the head ache, or the heat itself, go ahead and take an analgesic, otherwise, let the fever burn.

I’ve been wondering how many people, given a choice and with analgesics available, actually just let the fever burn.  I am allergic to analgesics.  Incredibly, this was my first episode of fever since I developed the allergies five years ago.  My doctor recommended a homeopathic Belladonna preparation if needed for fever reduction, but I couldn’t find any to buy.  So I had a week of letting the fever burn.  It was an interesting experience, to say the least!  While my eyes were open I was fairly cogent, but had occasional visual and auditory hallucinations.  Nothing too exciting, a repeated mechanical banging sound in one ear, and a teddy bear face in the neighbor’s pear tree across the street that grinned and winked at me through the window.  I did not feel like myself at all; it was hard to even remember who “myself” was.  I felt like an alien from the planet Febrile!

It was very weird living on another planet. My body size was all over the map – at one point I was convinced
that the pillow I was touching on the other side of the bed was part of my body. Other times I felt very tiny, like a little fold in the bed-covers. Whenever I shut my eyes the fever dreams moved right in, with always a
committee of six or seven people in my head furiously making plans and fixing things. I’m sure if I just could have somehow recorded what went on my brain I would have written 16 volumes of great literature, solved global warming and created world peace too, while “we” were at it.  You’ve heard of doing things at a fever-pitch?  My thoughts were like that.

The worst thing was the head pain.  Headaches go along with fevers; for a near-chronic migraineur like me any headache has a high likelihood of morphing into a Migraine.  The persistent coughing of the bronchitis also banged my head around.  I woke every morning with a headache and developed a Migraine every day by afternoon.

I had one really funny fever dream where I closed my eyes and there were 7 of me around a conference table and one of us had this really searing disgusting hideous head pain, and the other 6 of us voted her off the show!  She had to go – and my goodness I woke up and my head pain was gone!  I don’t know but I may have to see if I can tap into the power of the fever dream committee other times too.

Everything is relative and I have been profoundly grateful that I am not that sick all the time, or even often.  I’ve been thinking about acute versus chronic illness.  I live with frequent Migraines, frequent fatigue, fairly frequent infections.  I know there are others of you whose chronic illnesses are more debilitating, and more progressive.  But mine pale in comparison to a high fever and racking cough, aches, shakes, dizziness and passing out.   Being that sick for an extended period of time could kill you!   I guess that’s why we read in 19th century literature of a “dangerous fever.”  I sit in awe of my body’s ability to fight off an infection like this one, largely unaided by modern medicine.   I’m giving it lots of rest and fluid and letting it do its thing.  It’s getting the job done, slowly.

– Megan Oltman

Back on good old planet Earth.

Heart of fire image courtesy of Marcus Vegas; pointing finger image courtesy of Lisamarie Babik.

Tags: analgesics, bronchitis, chronic illness, fever, migraine
Posted in Medicine, Rant | Comments (6)