Artificially induced fever

[Jo from Austria]

Hi, since my ME/CFS Symptoms startet 2 years ago I was sick and had infections multiple times, without ever getting a fever- even tough this would be the body's natural response to illness. Has anybody ever tried or benefitted from inducing fever artificially by drugs or by heat applications?

 

[Alvin2]

Would this be very different from taking a hot bath or shower until you feel very overheated?

 

[Jo from Austria]

Would this be very different from taking a hot bath or shower until you feel very overheated?

I don't know, I just heard of people who treated their cancer that way because it makes you immune-system work.

 

[pamojja]

Has anybody ever tried or benefitted from inducing fever artificially by drugs or by heat applications?

I too heard hyperthermia is used in some German clinics to assist immunity in cancer patients.

Would this be very different from taking a hot bath

Except for not controlled temperatures, also sauna-use could heat the body-core temperature up.

Personal anecdote: didn't get any fevers for many decades too. In 2012 had a chronic bronchitis for a whole year, whiich in the end I tried to get rid of with sea-air at a South-Indian beach. However, did get an UTI, which after some time proceeded to a month long of high fevers, sweats, vomiting and diarhea (suspect thypoid fever). After that long month my bronchitis was gone with the fevers.

 

[gbells]

In my opinion a fever won't help you because it won't clear chronic viral infections and there will be a big energy drain from the increased metabolism. ME patients appear to have lower body temperature and fevers as part of mitochrondral fragmentation to slow viral spread.

 

[Jo from Austria]

In my opinion a fever won't help you because it won't clear chronic viral infections

why don't you think? isn't that what fever is supposed to do?

 

[Judee]

There was a guy online who had modified Wilson's Temperature protocol and believed you could do what you are saying but I cannot find his website now unfortunately.

I did try it for a while but it was difficult being so bundled up all the time. I normally wear 2-4 layers of clothes now as it is.

 

[gbells]

why don't you think? isn't that what fever is supposed to do?

Because chronic viruses integrate into the cell's DNA and become widespread and resistant to apoptosis. It isn't an effective way to kill them. It only works to slow viruses down during the acute stage of infection before they get entrenched. See posts in the Immunotherapy group for more info. After they are established it becomes self defeating.

 

[Judee]

@gbells, would it help to clear bacterial infections though like Lyme?

I remember reading of one Lyme patient who went to Germany to have a treatment where they heated her blood for several hours to kill the Lyme.

If bacterial infections got cleared wouldn't it help the body to get rid of the others??

 

[gbells]

@gbells, would it help to clear bacterial infections though like Lyme?

That's an interesting question. My understanding is that bacterial infections (lyme, rickettsia etc) clear up with a few weeks (2-6) weeks of appropriate antibiotic therapy so there is no need for it.

Perhaps the problem is that MDs are having problems identifying the bacteria and don't want to give antibiotics without lab confirmation. We know that HHV-6 masks EBV antibodies so perhaps something similar could be causing false negatives or there is just a new bacterial species. I had that problem with a nonspecific rocky mountain spotted fever positive result and literally had to twist the infectious disease doctor's arm to get a course of doxycycline. It eliminated chronic headaches I had for years after a flea bite from a feral cat. They never were able to identify the pathogen despite PCR testing for everything.

If you have some articles on blood heating as a treatment please share.

 

[JES]

I have been curious about this ever since I found out my symptoms resolved during colds. There is a fever effect that has been documented in autism and some other diseases, where getting a fever temporarily improves symptoms, which you can read about e.g. here. I assume the proposed effect of fever therapy is that it would knock down any infections that a real fever would.

The problem, as the linked article pointed out, is that just raising the temperature in mice did not have any effect on their behavior. Rather it's the infection itself triggering changes in the immune system and production of certain cytokines that apparently reduce the symptoms. This ties into what Ron Davis has observed in some of his patients. After having caught an infection, many of their symptoms and some of their blood parameters improved shortly afterwards.

So to answer the original question, I think raising temperature isn't enough to replicate things happening during a real fever and therefore wouldn't be of much use.

 

[MartinK]

Artificially induced fever interested me!
I got only 2x low fever during my CFS, but each time it caused something similar to a short-term improvement in all symptoms.
I'd like to try it artificially, true ;-)

 

[gbells]

After having caught an infection, many of their symptoms and some of their blood parameters improved shortly afterwards.

Perhaps its due to immune exhaustion. Could be the same reason ME patients did better with Rituximab. Immune response is a big energy drain. If you sabotague it the energy is freed up so the person feels better.

 

[JollyRoger]

I had this therapy. They used bacterial toxins to induce the fever (Great Th1 Booster).
You get the fever usually 1-2 hours after the injection.
My fever started four hours after the injection.
My blood oxygen dropped to 93%.
Both things never happened in their clinic (even not in all the cancer cases) because I was the first case with CFS there.

After the forth time I stopped because I felt no change.

 

[Judee]

If you have some articles on blood heating as a treatment please share.

I can't find the original article but I think this might be the girl I read about that had it done:
https://www.wcvb.com/article/belmon...reatment-cured-daughters-lyme-disease/9268783

Edit: Here's the hospital's webpage: https://www.klinik-st-georg.de/en/klinik-st-georg/lyme-specialized-center/
where they talk about the procedure.

 

[Jo from Austria]

After the forth time I stopped because I felt no change

except for reduced blood oxygen, did you experience any negative side effects such as a crash or anything?

 

[JollyRoger]

except for reduced blood oxygen, did you experience any negative side effects such as a crash or anything?

High fever, of course
I also had a severe headache and trembling.
But everything went back to normal after 2 days.
I had no relapse...