Actress Julia Roberts is famously quoted to have said “A fever is an expression of inner rage” . That would make perfect sense as a medical metaphor ! A fever is a common smoking gun of an infection, but any inflammatory condition could cause a fever. In a hospital setting, a fever is commonly encountered, if you cannot find a infection source, it’s time to think of other culprits flying under the radar.
A fever makes a patient have a SCALDING TEMPerature – is that easy to remember ? Lets make a mnemonic out of it to give us a direction to analyze a fever without an obvious infection:
- S – Surgery
- C – Clots
- A – Autoimmune conditions (Lupus, RA, etc.)
- L – Lying ! Factitious fevers
- D – Drugs
- I – Infections, Immunizations (Vaccines)
- N – Neuroleptic malignant syndrome (NMS)
- G – Gout
- T – Transfusion of blood / blood products
- E – Endocrine (Thyrorotoxicosis / Pheochromocytoma)
- M – Malignancy
- P – Pool of blood (Hematomas)
