Wednesday 29 September 2010

Pyrexiophobia-the fear of fever

There are many fears that bring on a palpity heart and a tremble to the fingers, ranging from the fear of a height to the fear of putting on weights, fear of depth to fear of death, a fear of cats and of a mouse, a recent addition to that long list of fears is the fear of fever,Pyrexiophobia.

There is this scarlet fever, the violent fever,(the adjectives are used to frighten a person more than the fever itself) killing fever, poisonous fever, deadly fever, viral fever, chilling fever and brain fever and if one escapes that the laboratory diagnosed typhoid fever.(which surprisingly gets diagnosed even with a 4 day fever)

There were times when whatever the origin was, it was accepted as a self sustaining fever, a shock fever or a love fever or a film fever or a journey fever and a simple concoction of herbs and strong tea was brewed and one gets well in a day or two.

Those were times when ones immune system was the chief, the armor to fight what ever the disease that was invading the body.

Now one is more dependent on outside help to fight individual germs, hence the need for special medicines and a developing drug industry.

The growing pharmaceuticals has got the support of the media, to flare the fears and spread the temperature, where the public gets to diagnose, and prescribe for itself with OTC medicines.

This is when a fever gets to be assessed as a friend, who fights against the invading germs, starts with the raise in the body temperature, better circulation,activation of all systems,or a foe who gets to be silenced for beeping the signal of attack.

The decision lies in the hands of the updated physician, who is free from the shackles and bonds of the influential drug industry, to win the friendship back of fever, or to keep it at bay as an enemy.

2 comments:

Local said...

Last month a friend and I developed the classic sore throat, cough and fever.

I slept for 36 hours and got up without a fever, though the cough remained for a few weeks. My friend went to Mallya and got diagnosed with swine flu. She was put in icu for 3 weeks with other cases on respirators and tamiflu. Just got out in time with a huge bill, a story for parties and a fear of death.

Interestingly, we both agree that making up our minds to get well was crucial to recovery.

venkhat said...

ohhhhhhhh, if only folks knew about tamiflu and its background, it wont get prescribed, but the aniseeds would be taken from which it is made just to keep ourselves digestively well for all food and armor for viral fevers.