Does Fever Make You Stupid?

[Uncayimmy]

I have come to learn over the years that when I get a fever, I get stupid. For years I have written programming code and plain old English as a major part of my work. As such I have had had the opportunity to review my programming and writing after having written it while having a fever. Invariably I do stupid things that I would not ordinarily do. For example, I write code that clearly doesn't do what it's supposed to do, and after the fact I cannot figure out how I possibly thought it would work. With English I'll make errors in grammar and substitute phonetically similar words. For example, I might write "Monday" instead of "muddy day."

I'm also somewhat meticulous about where I place things. I've never in my 44 years lost a wallet or keys. I almost never have to look for my shoes or gear I need (musical, photography, sports) because I always put them back in the same place or two. When I have a fever I do odd things like set my keys down on a table rather than the one spot I always keep them.

Anybody else have similar experiences?

 

[Vermonter]

I had a really nasty fever that ended up coming back once in the same few days. I was pretty damn delirious and had horrible nightmares when I did sleep.

 

[learner]

I know exactly what you mean. I don't need much help in daft skills but when I'm a bit out of sorts it all goes badly wrong. At the moment I have a heavy cold wich has resulted in me cutting my Nose, stopping at green lights, twice, leaving my wallet on the car passenger seat while I went shopping and forgeting my ex girlfreinds (two years ago) surname. I had to phone my mum and ask if she could tell me. She remembered it... and to call me "Fat head". again.

 

[Dr. Imago]

Stupid? Maybe.

Fever is a result of metabolic overdrive from substances, principally cytokines, that effect the autonomic regulatory system. Your hypothalamus goes haywire. Your hypothalamus is in your brain... connection? Part of feeling like crap is so you'll go and lay somewhere and rest until your body, now in metabolic overdrive, can clean-up the infection.

Fever is good, too. A mild fever, that is. Typically, I don't specifically treat fever (i.e., give antipyretics) in the ICU unless it gets above 39.0 celsius, or 37.5 celsius in brain injured patients.

~Dr. Imago

 

[JJM 777]

I voted "I function normally", because the poll didn't have an option for "I have ache in joints, and boring tasks feel even more boring than usually, but interesting tasks are as OK to do as ever".

Fever or no fever, when I need to do something that requires a lot of creative brain capacity, I am quite conscious that my stomach is not empty but also not too full with heavy food, and I absolutely must get fresh air, or if the room is windowless then I must go out strolling to get fresh air every now and then.

There is an exception to this rule: if the task is really fun and interesting, such as composing music, I sometimes can go half a day without even noticing that I am hungry like a wolf or the room has run out of air.

 

[casebro]

Ditto on the 'fat head'. And it seems to hang on for a few days. Seems like I slowly learn my brain to function again, or maybe find new pathways?

 

[Trent Wray]

Stupid? Maybe.

Fever is a result of metabolic overdrive from substances, principally cytokines, that effect the autonomic regulatory system. Your hypothalamus goes haywire. Your hypothalamus is in your brain... connection? Part of feeling like crap is so you'll go and lay somewhere and rest until your body, now in metabolic overdrive, can clean-up the infection.

Fever is good, too. A mild fever, that is. Typically, I don't specifically treat fever (i.e., give antipyretics) in the ICU unless it gets above 39.0 celsius, or 37.5 celsius in brain injured patients.

~Dr. Imago

Hey doc ... do exceptionally high fevers ever cause permanent damage?

IIRC, febrile seizures don't cause permanent altered mental status, although they can develop into epilepsy. During a fever, mental status does seem to fluctuate and become altered to varying degrees .... but can this ever be permanent with the fever as the primary cause ?

Looking at a severe case of someone with exceptionally high, prolonged fever (like in thyroid storm), neurological effects can occur afterwards secondary to the crisis, right? Or are the neurological effects (like with thyroid storm) the result of more factors beyond just the fever?

 

[Pantaz]

I usually have the "run over by a truck" response to fever. I just stay in bed and groan.

One night during a week-long bought with the flu when I was 12, I experienced hallucinations that I can still vividly recall. I have no idea how high my temperature hit.

 

[Robo Sapien]

I voted Planet X, because I have a fever right now.

 

[casebro]

Hey, didn't 'they' back off on the harmfulness of fever? At least in little tikes?

 

[GlennB]

Get zapped out, go to bed, ache sweat and groan a lot.

If you're fiddling about with everyday life, you haven't got a fever according to my understanding of the word. You've got a cold.

 

[Myriad]

I get fever dreams that are quite distinctive in nature. I'll repeatedly try to figure out some very simple (usually abstract) problem, like whether or not one shape will fit inside another shape, and be unable to come to any clear conclusion, over and over again, despite it seeming somehow very important that I figure it out. In some cases, having such a dream has been the first sign of an oncoming fever.

I've wondered if the myth of Sisyphus started with someone having a dream like that, interpreted as a vision of a punitive afterlife.

The first prototype for this kind of fever dream, when I was very young, contemplated addition. In that dream I was imagining two distinct sets of identical dots being combined together into one, and I couldn't decide whether or not correctly adding them together would require two of the dots to overlap and merge with one another in the process. (The simple answer being, of course, no.) Then I'd get confused and start over, again and again.

But, I seem to be pretty dim in dreams in general. Quite often -- in fact it happened last night -- I'll notice something in a dream that seems implausible, and consider the possibility that I might be dreaming -- and somehow manage to conclude that I'm not.

During fevers when awake, I haven't noticed being any stupider than usual, but I do get pretty lazy so maybe there's less opportunity to find out.

Respectfully,
Myriad

 

[Uncayimmy]

Interesting feedback. It's amazing what a delicate system the human body is at times while at other times it seems so robust.

 

[quarky]

Being around a woman I was attracted to (when I was younger) was an immediate drop of 20 i.q. points for me. Maybe more.

 

[tesscaline]

Well... I responded with the "unable to concentrate" option, since that's the most accurate way to describe the overall effect of a fever on me, but, being unable to concentrate does often lead to me doing/saying stupid things.

Fevers are actually something I struggle with on a regular basis -- I have very severe allergies which cause massive system wide inflammation. One symptom of that inflammation is a persistent low grade fever (100F or so) that does not respond to typical fever reducers (it does respond to antihistamines though). These fevers, despite being low grade make it very difficult for me to do even simple math, or even communicate effectively. It's as if trying to function through a very dense fog, where all my knowledge and experience is on one side of the fog, and I'm on the other side, trying to reach out and grab hold of it without being able to see where I'm reaching. It makes it so that the mere act of thinking becomes onerous and difficult to accomplish. So, I "become stupid" simply because I cannot concentrate well enough to operate at my normal level of intelligence.

High fevers (over 103.5) have left me delusional, suffering from hallucinations and/or violent mood swings (meaning the mood swing was violent, not that I became violent).

 

[Trent Wray]

I wonder if there is a flip-side to the fever idea? I mean, if one lowers their core body temp a couple of degree, can they become "more wise"? LOL

Does geographical location due to average mean temperatures reveal anything about the intelligence of the peoples living those regions? I've long had an idea about locational temperatures effecting emotional moods, but never considered the intelligence factor or mental status being heavily effected.

 

[RussDill]

I think a low grade fever will only tend to effect your concentration. But yes, I'd say that a higher fever really screws with your mind, I've destroyed a piece of hardware that way, don't solder and hyperthermiate.

When I was in college and had mono, I got used to dealing with the symptoms before I realized I had mono. I'd start driving to work and turn around because I didn't feel coordinated enough to drive. I also remember one occurrence of very vivid synesthesia, presumably brought on by fever.

 

[RussDill]

I wonder if there is a flip-side to the fever idea? I mean, if one lowers their core body temp a couple of degree, can they become "more wise"? LOL

Does geographical location due to average mean temperatures reveal anything about the intelligence of the peoples living those regions? I've long had an idea about locational temperatures effecting emotional moods, but never considered the intelligence factor or mental status being heavily effected.

I would venture to guess that the body tends to regulate itself at a temperature where all organs can function efficiently. In different locales, the body will have to work harder to maintain that temperature, a failure to maintain that temperature certainly leads to severely degraded mental function (heat stroke, hypothermia).

 

[quarky]

I wonder if there is a flip-side to the fever idea? I mean, if one lowers their core body temp a couple of degree, can they become "more wise"? LOL

Does geographical location due to average mean temperatures reveal anything about the intelligence of the peoples living those regions? I've long had an idea about locational temperatures effecting emotional moods, but never considered the intelligence factor or mental status being heavily effected.

I probably shouldn't say this, and I expect harsh criticism...but, in the U.S., especially 40 years ago, if you traveled from Maine to Florida, people got dumber as you got to warmer regions. Freezing weather forces a certain "being on top of it" attitude.

Same with the mid-route, from Minnesota to Texas, and the western route, from Washington to San Diego. An easy climate allows more slack.

 

[Uncayimmy]

I think a low grade fever will only tend to effect your concentration. But yes, I'd say that a higher fever really screws with your mind, I've destroyed a piece of hardware that way, don't solder and hyperthermiate.

When I was in college and had mono, I got used to dealing with the symptoms before I realized I had mono. I'd start driving to work and turn around because I didn't feel coordinated enough to drive. I also remember one occurrence of very vivid synesthesia, presumably brought on by fever.

What do you consider the cut-off between high and low fevers? No, it's not a trap - just curious.