Signs & Symptoms of a Fever

Video Transcript

"DR. SUSAN JEWELL: Hello. My name is Dr. Susan Jewell and on behalf of Expert Village, I'm going to to talk to you about how to treat fevers. Now, normal body temperature is at 98.6 degrees Fahrenheit, and any temperatures over that particular baseline temperature would cause you symptoms, and you'll get the signs as well that could tell you that, "Okay, something is not right with the body," and you could be getting a fever or temperature. So, when you take a temperature you can, obviously, you take it by feeling the body temperature. Also, you can use a more accurate way by using a thermometer. Now here, we--I've broken down some information about signs and symptoms for fevers. So, like any temperature over 98.6 degrees is an early warning sign that you could be getting a fever. Now, it's very important to recognize, specifically in the young pediatric or young children age group and also the elderly, that any temperature that is over 101 degrees Fahrenheit to 103 degrees Fahrenheit, it's recommended that you seek immediate medical care for this, so if it's late night, you need to go to take the person straight to the ER, Emergency Room, because there is something, obviously, especially if it's a very persistent fever and temperature is remaining at this, within this range, this can have a very terrible effect on the body if you don't seek medical attention and it could lead to death as well. So, that's very important to take note of this. Also, fevers and high temperature, besides the sweating, you're going to get other associated symptoms like nausea and vomiting and headaches, especially if it's fevers from colds and flus and things like that, viral flus, and usually you'll get what we call in the medical world, "shake and bake" where you have intermittent changes in you're shaking one minute from the cold and then you're sweating profusely immediately afterwards. It's the "shake and bake" syndrome and then accompanied by the shivers. Other symptoms are if it's diarrhea--you've got fever because you've got food poisoning, then you're going to get diarrhea. Of course, muscular pain, pain all over the body sometimes accompanying fever, and dizziness. So, these are just some of the signs and symptoms that will accompany different types of fever depending on the cause of the fever, and the things to recognize and to take heed of and to actually go and seek medical advice."