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Doctor's Blog

What do fevers and camping have in common?

camping

No one likes being sick.

Coughing up mucus, throwing up or having a fever is never fun. I get it! But what if I told you, if you indeed are sick, these are all GOOD things.

Let me give you one example…let’s talk about camping! If you have ever gone to the Boundary Waters or any type of remote camping, you need to find good water to drink. What most people do is canoe out to a deep part of the lake, tie a rope onto a bucket, let the bucket sink down deep into the water and then pull up a heavy bucket of water. Now that we have water, can we drink it? I guess so, but is it safe/healthy? Not yet! Why? Because it has all kinds of bad bacteria in it still. We need to purify it. So, what do we do? We make a nice camp fire, pour some of the water into one of our cooking pans and boil it to remove any and all bacteria that could be harmful to our body. In the same way, when we get sick, our body/brain recognizes that there is way too much bad bacteria inside of us, so we run a fever to increase our core temperature to kill off the bacteria.

Our brain and nervous system are SO INTELLIGENT.

Our system knows exactly what the body needs to do to be healthy. The problem is that we often get in the way of allowing our body to heal its self. Growing up as kids or maybe even now as parents, we are often quick to head to the drug store to get some type medication/drug that is designed to literally STOP the body from healing itself.

If we have a bad cough, we often buy cough drops or Robitussin instead of letting our body cough up the mucus with all the bacteria in it.

If we are throwing up, we often buy drugs to help settle our stomach which helps us feel better, but it keeps the bad bacteria in our body much longer rather than allowing our body to get rid of it.

If we have a fever, we take drugs to bring that fever down, so we feel better rather than letting our body heat up, kill off the bad bacteria and get back to being healthy again.

Who wants to be sick?

I know being sick is not fun! That’s why so many people in this world are so quick to turn to drugs when we have symptoms. We all want to feel better RIGHT AWAY! But please remember, YOUR BODY was designed to be HEALTHY! YOUR BODY is the best doctor in the world! It knows exactly what to do. You may need to toughen up for a day and fight through some not so fun symptoms, but I promise you, you will get over that sickness much faster if you let your body do its job. Don’t get in the way!

 

(If symptoms persist, talk with medical doctor.)

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