It is a busy winter evening. The emergency room is full and there are no available beds. I'm in triage, and there are a lot of patients in the waiting room. The secretary approaches me and says a mother would like to talk. I probably have eight patients to triage and she is the last that has checked in. Her child is eighteen months. I feel the tension as I walk to her side of the waiting room. The conversation goes something like this:
"How can I help you?"
"My baby has a fever of 105 degrees."
"Okay, I'm sorry to hear that. Have you given any Tylenol or Motrin?"
"No. Aren't you going to take him right back?"
"No. For one, I don't have any ER rooms open. Let's undress your baby down to his diaper to cool him off. I'll bring you some Motrin and juice to drink to make him more comfortable."
"Did you not hear me? His fever is 105! He's going to get brain damage."
"Ma'am, I understand your concern and I'm sorry your baby is not feeling well but I assure you, he is not going to get brain damage from this fever."
My reassurances do not change her mind. Only when
another mother in the ER
stands up and says, "No, ma'am, she's right about the fever. Your baby will be fine." does she relent.
In general, fever caused by illness will not cause brain damage. Children can run very high fevers. I've seen up to 106 degrees. We do not thrust them into ice water. We do this instead: undress them, give them some oral fever reducing medicine, and encourage them to drink lots of fluids. Remember, fever is a sign (something measurable) of an illness. Your body does it on purpose to try to kill off bacteria and viruses. The purpose of a fever is to make the host environment (the sick individual) harder for bacteria and viruses to live in. Our main concern in the ER is what is the
cause of the fever. This is what we'll worry about. Also, how high the fever is doesn't tell us if the problem is viral or bacterial.
Notice I said
fever is not worrisome for brain damage. However,
hyperthermia can be very concerning for causing brain damage. Hyperthermia is a rise in body temperature that can overwhelm the body's normal defense mechanisms. Situations like this would include heat emergencies like heat stroke. Think a baby stuck in a locked vehicle. Or, the sweat lodge deaths in Arizona.
Check out these resources for more information, in case you need another "mother" to dispel this myth.
1.
http://coldflu.about.com/od/othercommonillnesses/f/feverbraindamag.htm
2.
http://www.babycenter.com/404_can-a-high-fever-cause-brain-damage_11590.bc
3.
http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/ency/article/003090.htm
So please, don't perpetuate this myth in your writing, particularly from a character who is a medical person. What are your thoughts?
