6 Types of Fevers and What Causes Them
Every one of us suffers from fever either due to an infection or due to other chronic conditions. Fevers are of different types, and recognizing it’s type can enable you to get proper treatment and monitoring for it. Let’s see what are the different types of fever and what causes them.
Continuous fever: In such fevers, the temperature is always above the normal range and does not touch the baseline. The fever remains high and unfluctuating throughout the day with just a minor variation of about 1° Celsius in 24 hours. Causes: Continuous fevers are usually seen in individuals suffering from infectious disorders like typhoid, brucellosis, UTI, lobar pneumonia, and infective endocarditis.
Remittent fever: In this, the body temperature remains above normal throughout the day. However, medications may bring down the fever to more than 2° Celsius in 24 hours. The fluctuation of more than 2° Celsius makes it different from continuous fever. Causes: Remittent fever is usually caused when a person is suffering from infective endocarditis or typhoid fever.
Pel Ebstein fever: This type of fever is usually rare. In this type, the body temperature cyclically decreases or increases over a period of one or two weeks. Pel Ebstein fever occurs in a fashion where the body temperature may initially take 3 days to rise, remain high for 3 days and then remits in the next three days. Causes: Pel Ebstein fever is a rare type of fever and is commonly observed in people suffering from Hodgkin’s lymphoma.
Intermittent fever: It is a type of fever where the fever occurs in intervals during which it remains above normal for several hours and then drops back to normal. The spike in fever may usually occur at the same time each day, or every other day but can always be seen in a repetitive pattern. Causes: Intermittent fever is the general cause of malaria, septicaemia, and pyemia.
Septic fever: In this type of fever, the body temperature neither comes down, even with the use of antipyretics. Septic fever occurs due to sepsis which is a life-threatening condition. In sepsis, your body causes injury to its own tissues and organs. Septic fever should be addressed immediately to control and prevent any further deterioration in their state of health.
Cyclical recurrent fevers or periodic fevers: This type of fever is characterized by recurrent episodes of systemic and organ-specific inflammation. It can last from a few days to a few weeks along with symptom-free intervals. Causes: This pattern of fever can be caused by chronic inflammatory disorders like rheumatoid arthritis, recurrent infection, malignancy or non-infectious inflammatory diseases. Some other causes include Still’s disease, Crohn’s disease and Bechet’s syndrome. Periodic fevers can also result due to Hyper-IgD syndrome a genetic disorder. These different types of fever can be categorized based on their severity and occurrence. In case of persisting and high fever, it should be immediately brought to the doctor’s attention.
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