Problem description:

I am a male, 24 years old. As long as I can remember, from childhood to adulthood, I have a low fever in the alternate seasons of autumn and winter every year, and I am afraid of the cold at night. Why?

Analysis:

Low heat

[Symptom characteristics]

Low fever refers to the oral temperature of 37.4-38c, excluding physiological reasons (such as high temperature operation, pregnant women, or female ovulation). The heat range of more than two weeks is called long-term low fever.

【 Etiology and key points of differentiation 】

(1) Organic low fever

1. Tuberculosis: It is a common cause of low-grade fever, often accompanied by night sweats, emaciation and burnout.

2. Chronic pyelonephritis: more common in married women, often accompanied by symptoms such as backache, frequent urination, urgency and dysuria.

3. Chronic biliary tract infection often presents digestive symptoms, such as loss of appetite, nausea, vomiting, chronic pain in the right upper abdomen (and biliary colic).

4. Other infections: chronic inflammation of tonsils, roots, sinuses, middle ear, mastoid process and female internal genitalia can also cause low fever, but irregular and fluctuating fever is more common. In addition to local symptoms, patients often have symptoms such as poor mental and physical strength, palpitation and hyperhidrosis.

5. Liver disease: Chronic hepatitis without jaundice or persistent hepatitis without jaundice can cause low fever, and patients are often accompanied by loss of appetite, abdominal distension and dull pain in the liver area.

6. Rheumatism often has low fever in clinic, accompanied by joint pain, palpitation and other symptoms.

7. Hyperthyroidism patients are often accompanied by hyperhidrosis, but at the same time sweating and fear of heat.

(2) Functional low fever

The patient's body temperature is about 0.3-0.5℃ higher than that of normal people. Relativity law of thermal type. Often sweating, shaking hands, fear of cold, palpitation, insomnia, weight loss and other symptoms. More common in young women, it is caused by autonomic nervous dysfunction. In addition, every summer, there is a low fever, accompanied by dizziness, fatigue, loss of appetite and other symptoms, and the fever returns to normal, which is called summer heat in western medicine (called "summer heat" in Chinese medicine).