When you check your body temperature you are establishing a measurement of the ability of your body to generate and dispel hest. No matter what the temperature is outside of the body, it can do a good job of keeping your body temperature within a range that’s pretty narrow and safe.
The blood vessels in your skin control how the excess heat in your body is handled. If you are too hot, they expand to bring that heat to the surface of the skin causing you to sweat and when that evaporates, your body cools off. If you are too cold then the blood flow to your skin slows down (the blood vessels constrict) so that the heat in your body is kept inside. If you shiver, you are actually causing muscle activity, which can generate more heat & warm you up then.
When you need to have your temperature checked there are several ways in which it can be measured. We are all familiar, as we get older with the thermometer under the tongue approach that your mother or a nurse uses. If it’s not possible to hold it under your tongue then under your armpit, in your ear or even in your rectum are alternative locations. The basic feeling of the forehead gives a relative representation of how hot or cold you are but that should be followed by one of the other methods to determine the actual temperature if you feel too warm in particular.
Normal temperatures, when measured with a thermometer, is 98.6°F – convert to Celsius if your region uses those measurements. Your own variability is usually 1°F either way. How active you are can also affect that variability and the time of day as well can affect the measurement.
So to say someone has a temperature that is out of bounds (or has a fever) and the reason needs to be determined is 100°F – rectal or ear measurements of 101°F is having a “temperature” that should be diagnosed. A child with a rectal temp of 100.4°F is considered as having a higher than normal temperature or a fever.
Usually a fever is caused as a reaction to something going on in the body at a point in time. These reactions are generally to:
An infection – the most common cause – they affect the whole body or a particular part of it;
Medicines – like in particular antibiotics, narcotics, barbiturates, antihistamines, and many others – some directly raise the body temp and are expected to, others are causing the body to not be able to adjust its temp on its own when something else is causing it to rise; and
Severe trauma or injury – such as a heart attack, stroke, heat exhaustion or heatstroke, or burns.
Some other medical conditions can also cause a fever. If they are known already to be an issue for a particular patient then they can be treated for that condition. The other medical conditions that could cause a fever are: arthritis, hyperthyroidism, and even some cancers, such as leukemia, Hodgkin’s lymphoma, and liver and lung cancer.
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