FEVER

Symptoms

• Temperature greater than 100.4 F (38 C) in adults and children
• Shivering, shaking, and chills
• Aching muscles and joints or other body aches
• Headache
• Intermittent sweats or excessive sweating
• Rapid heart rate and/or palpitations
• Skin flushing or hot skin
• Feeling faint, dizzy, or lightheaded
• Eye pain or sore eyes, weakness

Causes

• Infectious (virus, Bacterial eg URTI, UTI, AGE etc)
• Heat exhaustion
• Extreme sunburn
• Immunological as rheumatoid arthritis, SLE
• A malignant tumor
• Some medications, such as antibiotics and drugs used to treat high blood pressure or seizures
• Some immunizations, such as the diphtheria, tetanus and pneumococcal vaccine
• Various skin inflammations, e.g., boils, or abscess
• Fever of unknown origin
• Tissue destruction as in hemolysis, surgery, infarction, crush syndrome, rhabdomyolysis, cerebral bleeding, etc.
• Blood transfusion

Diagnosis

Along with having generalized symptoms of a fever, taking one's temperature with a thermometer can confirm the diagnosis of a fever. A temperature greater than 100.4 F in adults or children is considered a fever.

Different tests may be done by a doctor, such a blood and imaging tests, to determine the cause of a fever and if the cause of the fever needs to be treated.

Complications

• Severe dehydration
• Hallucinations
• Fever-induced seizure (febrile seizure), in a small number of children ages 6 months to 5 years

Treatment

Fever is not a disease but a manifestation of underlying problem, hence we should always find the cause of fever. Conservative management includes cold sponging while medical management includes antipyretics as ibuprofen, Paracetamol.