Tuesday, February 01, 2005
When I get sick with a cold or the flu, my inclination is to help my body fight off the infection by baking it out. Your body induces a fever because viruses and bacteria are sensitive to temperature. I figure that taking acetaminophen to reduce the fever will only make me sick for longer. So I take hot showers, hot baths, sleep with socks on, etc. Drinking hot tea is a double whammy because it soothes my throat and increases my body temperature as well. All this makes me uncomfortably hot, but that's the idea. I haven't done any double-blind studies to verify effectiveness, but it sounds good.