Cooling lower limbs to treat fever.

[Anton S.]

Dear Experts

There is a method in German folk medicine to cool down lower legs when suffering from fever. The lower legs of the patient wrapped in wet, cold cotton clothes are supposed to treat fever.

I believe it can damage meridians (esp. of the kidney) and this method would therefore be rather unhealthy from the Chinese perspective.

But I am no expert in TCM.Please help me out.

Best regards, Anton

[Andrea]

Dear Anton

I am no expert and other family members can certainly answer this better.

I believe it is important to remember that Western and Chinese Medicine have a different perspective, different goals and thus different methods. When you speak of "fever" you speak about a symptom. Western medicine generally bases its diagnosis on symptoms and treats them. The goal is to get rid of the symptom. Chinese medicine on the other side looks at a wider range of factors and treats the patient as a whole. The TCM treatment for two patients manifesting both "fever" symptoms will vary. Because the goal is different, the methods are different.

As for looking at the "wet, cold cotton clothes" from a TCM perspective: I believe that they would be seen as harmful when the "fever" is related to the external factors of wind/cold. Adding more "cold" and "dampness" would then make the situation worse. But again this is a very simplified view as there are different wind/cold conditions. "Wind" and "Cold" are also related (5-elemental processes) to liver/gallbladder and kidney. Again I am no expert and have yet only a very limited TCM understanding.

What would be interesting, is, do the "cold, wet cotton clothes" help when we stay within the western paradigm? Are they effective in reducing the fever?
BTW here in Switzerland the "cold cataplasm" (Kalter Wickel) against fever uses vinegar instead of water (or alternatively "vinegar socks" ) . Interesting enough vinegar is considered "warm" in TCM . And this might change a few things.

Andrea

[Anton S.]

Dear Andrea,

thank you so much for your enlighting answer!

The vinegar option sounds interesting.
Well German "Wadenwickeln" wrapping lower legs, is known to reduce the fever symptom.

Best regards, Anton

[Kaijet]

differences

Hello Anton,

in Chinese Medicine there is not such a thing called fever. It get named different depend which other symptoms are also present.

sweating & strong aversion to cold > external cold
low heat(fever) & aversion to wind > external deficiency syndrome
heat(fever) with little aversion to cold > external wind-heat invasion
changing from heat(fever) to ague > shaoyang syndrom means half internal half external

this are only few examples how the chinese medicine is looking at in western medicine called "fever" .

This few examples are also showing us that we should deal differently because of different symptoms.

Cooling the limps are only helpful if there is exreme yang /fever without any other symptoms. If the patient is feeling cold or he don´t like cooling the limps then this is of course not the right treatment.

[Irina]

Fever is useful

Hi there,

Heat reducing compresses are often used in case of acute inflammations and also to lower the fever when it is above 40 degrees. When there is inflammantion of the limbs, the affected area is reddened, hot, swelled. The compress should draw off as much heat as possible from the affected area. This process restrains in addition the local metabolism because it narrows the blood vessels. Moreover, the nerves reactions slow down when cooled and thus the pain may be reduced.

All of this means that such compresses help to reduce or eliminate the symptoms rather than to cure the source of the fever or the inflammation.

What is more important, fever speeds up the reaction of the defensive system and therefore it is helpful for our own immune processes. Defensive organs such as thymus, spleen and the lymphatic knots become bigger and their activity becomes more vigorous. Many bacteria and viruses die at higher temperatures.

Therefore, from this point of view temperature should only be lowered when it endangers the well being.

By the way, Russian use Vodka for the compresses :-) and it helps too.