Body temperature

[wellinghall]

[Poll #1291009]

Comments

[bookwormsarah.livejournal.com]

As the song goes "Hey, ninety-eight point six, it's good to have you back again..."

[arda-unmarred.livejournal.com]

36.6C


athough you never specified whether the body is dead or alive

[tigerfort.livejournal.com]

Not wishing to seem unreasonably scientific, but it depends on the person (and, as a rule, the time of day/the month, how much sleep they've had in the last fortnight, what they've been eating recently, ...). The 'normal' human range is about 35.5 to 37.5 C (~96 to 99.5 F), although most people are towards the middle of the range almost all the time. If my temperature is 36.9 C, I take paracetamol and go to bed.

[phoebesmum.livejournal.com]

I know this, because there was a song called '98.6' when I was young - it is a very old song - which meant that, when I was told in Biology that it was 98.4, I actually processed it ("Wait, what, that song lied to me?!"). Mostly all that happened to me in Biology is that sometimes the teacher would say 'Capillary' and I would jump because I'd think she was talking to me.

[bunn.livejournal.com]

I was taught 36-ish, but surely it must vary a bit by individual and activity level..?

[brightlywoven.livejournal.com]

36.6 to 37.2 celcius

[romancinger.livejournal.com]

I learned 98.4 when I was at school, and more recently 37C. But my own normal temperature used to be 98.2 (don't know what it is now in C!)

[camillofan.livejournal.com]

I learned 98.6 F in school.

But that was back when Pluto was a planet.

[alitalf.livejournal.com]

My memory is not great - I have always remembered "about 37 ish".

[culturalnomad.livejournal.com]

I was taught 98.6°F, which is also what is marked as "normal" on all the oral thermometers I have, so that's how I "voted" in your poll. (It's also the same as 37°C, so I went back and forth between the two.)

My own temp, though, is almost always at least one degree Fahrenheit (or at least half a degree Celsius) LOWER than that. If my temp gets above 99°F I figure I'm sick.

[miss-t-ide.livejournal.com]

Depends where you measure it. If you stick a thermometer in your mouth, then 37°C &plsmn;0.2° and dependent upon a number of factors. Armpit temperatures are a bit lower and timpanic or rectal ones are a bit higher.

[firin.livejournal.com]

It really isn't that simple, sorry Wellinghall!

A range of 36.0 to 37.5 degrees Celsius is the currently accepted (and taught) range of normal, but as others have already said, it really varies on the individual patient, their circumstances, what they've just been doing, the time of day and where you are attempting to take the temperature (e.g. sub-lingua, axilla, ear). For example, a temperature of 37.1 might be a low grade pyrexia in the morning, but not at night, while you would expect a temperature reading from the axilla (armpit) to be lower than that from the mouth or ear.

If a patient has just walked in from a brisk, frosty morning outside, then a tympanic measurement in their ear will probably be cold, while if they wear hearing aids and have only just removed said aid, then the ear is likely to give a falsely warm reading. Similar principle to not drinking a hot drink and then taking a sub-lingual reading.

Anti-pyretic measures are usually called for between 37.5 and 38 degrees Celsius, again depending on the patient, while warming techniques such as Bair Hugger warm air blankets, are usually employed below temperatures of 35 degrees Celsius. The Safer Patient initiatve at my Trust records (and requires intervention)when any patient leaves theatre with a temperature below 36.0 degrees C.

Most important is the evaluation of what a patient's temperature is versus their usual norm. If someone usually runs at about 36 degrees C, then a post-operative or post blood transfusion temperature of 37.5 degrees C is much more clinically significant.