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What Is Your Body Temperature? Rethinking 98.6

What is your average body temperature?

  • Above 99.2 (37.3 C) - I have high fevers most of the time

    Votes: 11 3.2%
  • 98.6-99.2 (37-37.3 C) - I tend to run a low grade fever

    Votes: 34 9.8%
  • 98.2-98.6 (36.8-37 C) - My body temperature is in the normal range

    Votes: 15 4.3%
  • 96.2-98.2 (35.7-36.8 C) - I tend to have a slightly lower body temperature

    Votes: 227 65.6%
  • Below 96.2 (35.7 C) - Brrrrrrrr!!!!

    Votes: 24 6.9%
  • My temperature fluctuates throughout the day &/or changes daily

    Votes: 35 10.1%

  • Total voters
    346

Freddd

Senior Member
Messages
5,184
Location
Salt Lake City
Hi sorry I am relatively new here, and just beginning to learn a few things. What do you mean by needed cofactors and how do you take mb12 adb12?!

Hi Cath,

Here is the preliminary information you need. Then join one of the conversations that strikes your fancy from your more specific questions on the methylation menu from which that originates and tell us about your symptoms and so on. There is a list of about 300 symptoms in several places that has every FMS/CFS symptom and way more that the active b12 protocl can help. I am long cured of FMS/CFS.

http://forums.phoenixrising.me/showthread.php?11522-Active-B12-Protocol-Basics
 
Messages
13
My temp is usually 97.9-98.6. So I actually fall under 2 of the above categories. I'd say more often I'm 97.9 - 98.2, but I do also fall in the 98.2-98.6 range.
 

mellster

Marco
Messages
805
Location
San Francisco
While I think it is a decent diagnostic marker it should not lead to quick conclusions such as hypothyroidism, body temp varies genetically from person to person as well and also during your life. I tend to have lower basal temp (the majority group in this poll) and I figured out that I can quickly raise it by at least one full degree by drinking a red bull. Coffee does not work as well for some reason, I also feel better on red bull than on coffee and am wondering if the taurine and other ingredients besides the caffeine help. I am considering it as a regular "supplement" once a day or every other day, esp. when I don't have access to my taurine pills.
 
Messages
1
I am not sure the doctor's office takes my normally lower body temperature into consideration when I appear with what most people perceive as a "normal" temp. When I am sick and my temp reaches 101 - I have a serious fever.

I am hypothyroid due to radioactive treatment when seriously hyper at the age of 32.
 

Forebearance

Senior Member
Messages
568
Location
Great Plains, US
I understand what you mean, Linda. A fever is relative to your normal temp!
I always had a body temp of 96.8 until I began taking thyroid supplements.
Hypothyroidism runs in my family.
 

roxie60

Senior Member
Messages
1,791
Location
Central Illinois, USA
usually around 97.2-97.6. When I am at 98.6 or higher I feel poorly. I am amazed most of the time at the Drs office the ear temp guage says 98.6 (although last week I was 99.1). Over the yers I have got extrememly frustrated with nurses who say you are 98.6 then sy I'm normal, I correct them (which I'm sure they do not appreciate) that is not normal that is an average. Why is it so hard for medical personell to ask how you feel instead of believing they can tell how a person is feeling based on a temp guage. They do a disservice, its lazy and indifferent. When I;m 99or over I dont feel well at all, even at 98.b6 I am very uncomfortable. I feel ok at 97.2.
 

jeffrez

Senior Member
Messages
1,112
Location
NY
97.7 most of the time. Usually lower in the morning, often in the 96 range.
 
Messages
99
Location
Twin Cities
Usually around 97.4-97.6. Sometimes up to 98.1. Often down to 96.X after a particularly stressful event or exercise. Haven't seen temps higher than 98.1 or 98.2 in many years.
 

Little Bluestem

All Good Things Must Come to an End
Messages
4,930
I've given up taking my temperature since I lost my last mercury thermometer. Those digital thing buzz and turn themselves off before they have actually registered my temperature. If I take it repeatedly, it will go up each time, but the amount it goes up is less each time.
 
Messages
11
I'm not sure how to answer this poll.

96.2-98.2 (35.7-36.8 C) - I tend to have a slightly lower body temperature: This is usually true for me in the mornings.

98.2-98.6 (36.8-37 C) - My body temperature is in the normal range: This is usually true in the afternoons and evenings.

98.6-99.2 (37-37.3 C) - I tend to run a low grade fever: This used to be true in the late afternoons and early evenings until I was treated with Valcyte. Now only occasionally. Sometimes up to 99.4.

I start feeling feverish when I get up to 98.8. I'm very grateful to no longer have those late afternoon fevers all the time. So very grateful.

Gracenote, I have followed the exact same fever/body temps as you. I ran a fever for over a year which reached up to 101 plus nearly every day. The temp always started rising at about 4pm and subsiding between 9-10pm daily. Upon awakening my temps were close to 97, always. My internist ran oodles of tests, my rheumatoid factor and sed rate shot up into the 70 & 80 percentile. But the virologist ran numerous blood tests with no results out of the normal range. Very frustrating. After about a year all of those tests calmed but the inflamation remains elevated of course. Never did get DX'd w/RA.
 
Messages
51
Location
NORTHAMPTONSHIRE, UK
Before i was ill, I have always felt the cold and love the heat.

I hadn't thought of recording my temperature, but still I feel the cold and prefer the heat.
I feel colder more often, but did have some Reiki which I believe stabilised my internal thermostat as since then it hasnt been so drastic.
Now when my fingers and toes, then hands and feet lose circulation I try to have another reiki session.
 

Sherlock

Boswellia for lungs and MC stabllizing
Messages
1,287
Location
k8518704 USA
I used to say that my temp is low since getting sick (97.2) whereas I was at 98.6 previously. But now I know that it is really dysregulation, because exercise makes it go higher than it should and it takes a very long time to come down. Last summer, I did some exercise outdoors. Then I got in the car and kept the widows closed, with AC&vents off. After driving for 5 minutes, my head was pouring perspiration. I'd brought a thermometer and so saw that my temp was 106F. I immediately opened the windows, etc.; but this experiment let me know that I wasn't just over-sweating, I really was overheating.

I used to prefer the cold and hate the heat (a sign of high histamine). Now the heat doesn't bother me. My sweating pattern has changed, even on a very hot day it's mostly from my upper face, while even my hair stays dry.

So yes, a fever of 2 degrees only puts me around 99; but the microbes don't know it's a fever! That low of a fever can't be doing much to defeat them. I'd also think that whatever variety of pathogens thrive in a person might be different at a normally low body temp.
 

Sherlock

Boswellia for lungs and MC stabllizing
Messages
1,287
Location
k8518704 USA
A thread search didn't turn up Cheney's name, so here is my view of his view in a nutshell (N.B. I'm not a Cheney expert, I've only watched his 2005 talk once so far: www.youtube.com/watch?feature=endscreen&v=-3dNF9UT6xQ&NR=1)

The mitochondria are weak--> the heart pumps less (diastolic dysfunction)--> not enough blood to go around, so circulation to the skin is shut down--> now you can't cool so well--> the body compensates by reducing thyroid hormone so that you generate less heat

That does fit with being low temp while resting but also not being able to cool so well after exertion.
 

xks201

Senior Member
Messages
740
Sherlock...either that or just hypovolemia. When the sympathetic nervous system is overactive (hyperadrenergic state/high norepinephrine stress) we pee a lot and don't retain water. Could be starting that cascade as well. Everyone wants to blame the mitochondria but they are recycled daily. If it was solely a mitochondrial problem we could all take mitochondrial boosters and be fine but that is not the case. I think a lot of these docs are honestly puzzled and just reach for the easiest solution...oh the problem is with the mitochondria..and we are screwed. lol
 

Tammy

Senior Member
Messages
2,176
Location
New Mexico
I never could make any sense of my temperature fluctuations. Sometimes I feel like I'm running a fever yet my temp is normal or below...........and other times I don't necessarily feel like I have a fever and yet my temp is at 99.....99.1 And then there are those times I feel like I have a fever and I in fact do. Geesh. I used to experience the afternoon fevers around 3-4 in the afternoon that would go away as evening came on. I don't consider those a true fever however......I mean if my body was indeed fighting an infection seems like it wouldn't have that kind of pattern. The first few years of CFS I had fever almost everyday and I do think that then my body was trying to fight off something.
 
Messages
47
That's right Xk-- the word "causal" has been haunting us for a long time now. Oh, lots of theories concerning the causality of the disease, but we really yet have a very good picture do we?

As I told Sherlock, I even heard of a guy whose CFS specialist felt after the two decades he saw patients that the primary problem was that our sleep cycle was somewhat disturbed that set everything else off. I mean...that was the 'thing' for him.

Part of our problem, is age old...your background is always going to color how you look at the illness. This often is a good thing-- inventive solutions emerging from unexpected places. But so long as the disease is not understood, or even worse, as has been the case for decades, poorly misunderstood (hmm, tests look good, referred to 'talk' with someone!) it's gonna be an uphill battle. But I'm not afraid. I got a nap today, giving me the energy to put my big boy pants on.
 

Yocheved

Spoonless In Seattle
Messages
29
Location
Seattle, WA, USA
I'm almost always a degree and a half below normal - except in the late evening around 7pm, when I shoot up to 99 degrees for a few hours. You can almost set your watch by it. It's really weird because I sweat a lot when I'm cold, but hardly at all when I'm hot. My hands and feet are always freezing, and so is the tip of my nose. When I run a fever, I use my cold hands on my face and forehead as a "cold compress" to try and get back into a normal temp range.

I was like this before I became ill (except for the fever part). Always cold, with frozen extremities. Many years ago, when I was trying to track my ovulation cycles, my basal body temp was always the same, from month to month. Perfectly flat lined. My doctor kept insisting that I was taking the readings wrong, or filling out the chart wrong. Nope, no change at all.
 

Sherlock

Boswellia for lungs and MC stabllizing
Messages
1,287
Location
k8518704 USA
I was like this before I became ill
I've noticed that many of my CFS symptoms existed in my pre-CFS existence, just to a lesser degree or frequency. But still, while that applies to other symptoms of mine, my temp was normal and steady before CFS.