Low Body Temperature anyone?

I believe my temperature used to be 'normal' before chemo, and never thought of it at all until I recently had surgery for a hernia. Part of the post-surgery instructions were to take your temperature twice a day for a week (to make sure you weren't getting an infection), I was startled to find that my temperature was consistantly at about 97 degrees or so. I don't feel sick and actually like feeling cold, so don't think it is a problem for me, but interesting none the less.

But what would temperature have to to with that?

I have a 6 month checkup in July and just wrote this down in my 'Questions Notebook' as a topic to run past my oncologist. I will let you know if he has any insight. I will also check it out with my GP (who does a lot of research and whom I love!) when I see him in the fall.

MBJ, on what do you base your statement that "most" people with serious diseases seem to have low body temp? I have never seen any research on this. Which does not mean it doesn't exist, it merely means I haven't seen it.

I might seem to fit into that category - low body temp all my life & now have bc. However, I was dx at age 57, and neither of my sisters (both with low body temp) have bc or any other serious diseases.

So a blanket statement like that one would need something to back it up.

Perhaps most people with low body temp and serious diseases have low body temp because of the disease and not the other way around - in other words, they don't have a serious disease because of the low body temp.

Leah

Seyla, I agree with what you said about the variation.

I have gotten worried, "Are you feeling all right?" questions from nurses when my BP is taken. I have had BP that has others almost passed out and I'm up & running.

Leah

MJB, if regulating your temp helps you feel better, then do it! I was not questioning whether you felt better when you regulated your temp, I was questioning your statement about "most" people with serious diseases have low body temp.

Keep researching, keep doing what makes you feel better. Even if you're the only person you know who has such a difference in how you feel with such a small fluctuation of body temp, it's still valid for you.

Best of luck.

Leah

MBJ, I hope you find both.

Leah

Ladies, I am the one who started the fungal thread.  I believe cancer and fungus are linked (as well as other diseases.)  The thread is now dormant because of the abuse it received.  Anyway, this thread has me fascinated as well.  I too have had low body temp most of my life.  This got me to thinking about that and how it relates to fungus.  I found this article.  It is titled, "Just warm enough. Mammals' body temperatures may represent balance between warding off fungi and limiting food needs." http://www.sciencenews.org/view/generic/id/67029/title/Just_warm_enough  It is basically about a study and theory in biological evolution but the following excerpts relate to what we're discussing here.

One might predict from this model that raising an animal's temperature would lead to greater resistance to fungi. Lowering body temperature would then be expected to make animals more vulnerable to fungal infections.

Frogs and other amphibians in decline around the world - in part because of infections with a chytrid fungus - may provide some evidence that the theory is correct. Warming up infected frogs can help clear them of the fungus, Heitman says.

Reducing a mammal's temperature in the laboratory to find out whether lower body temperatures lead to fungal disease is difficult because messing with body temperature can affect many other biological processes. But hibernating bats may provide a clue that Casadevall is onto something, says David Blehert, a microbiologist with the U.S. Geological Survey's National Wildlife Health Center in Madison, Wis.

Blehert studies white-nose syndrome, a fungal disease that is killing bats in large numbers in the eastern United States. A fungus called Geomyces destructans infects bats while they are hibernating - a time when body temperatures drop from 40˚ C to about 7˚. "They're not warm-blooded when they get infected," Blehert says. When bats are up and around and at their normal body temperature, they seem impervious to the infection, he says.

In a report published November 11 in BMC Biology, Blehert and others described how the fungus, which erodes and replaces the bat's skin, damages wings and leads to death. Casadevall's idea has "become important in our thinking about this disease," Blehert says.

The idea of a link between fungal disease and body temperature is not controversial among scientists, Blehert says. "It's very logical."

YamahaMama, you mentioned toenail fungus and also your hands cracking. I've noticed a lot of women on these boards have to deal with toenail fungus.  Also, after my daughter moved into a new home, her hands begin to crack like you described.  They discovered the home had mold (fungus) growing in the attic.  (She also had fertility problems and PCOS - Polycistic ovary syndrome during this time, that I feel was related to the mold as well.)  Once the mold problem was remediated, her hands cleared up and she got pregnant.  Anecdotal, I know but just my thoughts and observations.

Fever is a way for our bodies to ward off or fight infection, yet when we are sick and we get fever, we try to suppress it with fever reducers. I have never understood that. 

The question is...What makes us have low body temp???  I am definitely interested in resetting my body temp.  Thanks for this thread MBJ!!  I have read quite a bit of that website you linked but I'm not really sure what to do to begin. 

Sorry about being so windy, just trying to keep warm

My temp is 97.1 or 97.2 all of the time and I believe so since chemo. Almost done with chemo and then will start rads. I want to review this thread so I can check out the benefits of having higher temperature.

This is very interesting. I too had a toenail fungus.



More recently I was on antibiotics due to kidney infection. This prompted a yeast infection in which I was prescribed diflucan. I had a rough patch of skin on my lower back that was itchy and growing larger. My gp prescribed cortisone but it never went away, that was until I took diflucan.



Anyways my point is, I consistently have low body temperature, I had or have mild toe nail fungus and I had that patch on my skin which I would say was fungus as it had completely cleared with 2 doses of diflucan. I wonder how long I've had fungus in my body, that I couldn't fight naturally.

Thank you for this subject. My doctor is trying to reset my low temperature higher because he said low temps means lower immune function. He said it takes months to slowly raise the waking temp.

The poster who said she felt like a fever at 98.6-- I understand but that can't be good because your body isn't hot enough to fight invaders. The goal is to get the temp slowly to 98 (the feel good point) so that when you get a fever it really is 99- upwards.

A lot of us don't know what normal is. The doc has me keeping a chart of temps 3 times a day starting before I get out of bed in the morning.

Julie,

Your father isn't crazy. I use iodine tablets as part of my integrative breast cancer protocol and I've started sweating during exhertion for the first time since I was 12. I didn't know I had low thyroid until I felt better and my temp went up. My dry skin went away. No hand or body lotion needed now--just face cream.

There is a 5,000 member iodine group discussion on Yahoo. My blood tests always showed my thyroid as normal. Hah! I didn't know a good doctor evaluates your thyroid by symptoms as the blood tests are unreliable.

I can vouch for MBJ knowing her stuff! She is fortunate to have access to one of the best integrative docs and she has researched carefully. Because of my sister I get to attend integrative medical conferences and they all back up this information-- you can check.