When to treat pyrexia?

Re: When to treat pyrexia?

emvn80 — Tue, 23 Aug 2011 15:56:25 GMT

Also what I didn't say is to also think about if you had a fever and were pyrexic, think how crap and shivery you would feel if someone started actively cooling you. They are hot due to a disease process but may not actually feel hot so cooling makes them feel worse. Shivering is undesirable as it will produce more body heat and it increases the bodies oxygen demand massively.

Re: When to treat pyrexia?

emvn80 — Tue, 23 Aug 2011 15:52:11 GMT

i completely understand what you are saying....The most important thing to do is do work out from the history and clinical signs if the patient is pyrexic or hyperthermic. Hyperthermic animals are animals that are simply hot due to overheating from being placed in a hot place hot and their normally cooling mechanisms have failed to cool them down. Pyrexic animals have a disease process- infection/inflammation that is causing a high temperature due to a physiological resetting of the normal temperature set point of the body.

The treatment is very different...Hyperthermic 'hot' animals ie your heatstroke animals should be actively cooled- ie a fan, clipping fur, cool bath/shower, spirit etc. A pyrexic animal should NOT be actively cooled. Pyrexic animals can have antipyretic drugs administered such as paracetamol (NOT cats) or other NSAIDs. It is thought that these NSAID antipyretic action is due to a recently discovered 'COX 3' enzyme, hence why paracetamol is such a good antipyretic as it is not COX2 selective like meloxicam etc.

I hope this helps, sorry for the late reply!

Re: When to treat pyrexia?

Susan Jackson — Wed, 03 Aug 2011 20:40:02 GMT

I've never known a vet not to treat a pyrexia case. A high temperature is abnormal and Idealy you find out cause if known and treat. Seen loads of pyrexia cases that you don't know cause of.

The only thing I can think of is not treating a pyrexic cat with and NSAID if it has kidney failure. If that is the case you still need to reduce the high temperature but you would use alternatives. Could that be the cause of your confusion about anti-inflammatories?

Re: When to treat pyrexia?

Steph Worsley — Wed, 03 Aug 2011 17:24:34 GMT

what do you mean by anti-pyrexics?

like I said previously investigate the cause of the pyrexia and then treat appropriately.....might be ab's to treat infection or steroids to treat polyarthritis or steroid responsive meningitis. we have never not treated pyrexia once we have established the cause of it.....we don't treat on a suspicion of this or that always get a diagnosis then treat

Re: When to treat pyrexia?

Hannah25uk — Wed, 03 Aug 2011 09:49:33 GMT

Maybe i should have phrased it better, apparently there are circumstances when you shouldn't treat pyrexia, but i'm not sure whether it was when the patient has it due to infection or inflammation. I would always actively try to reduce their temp especially if it was hyperthermia due to heatstroke but when would you not give anti-pyrexics?

Re: When to treat pyrexia?

Katie Mansfield — Wed, 03 Aug 2011 09:17:01 GMT

[quote user="Hannah25uk"]Someone at work mentioned pyrexia should only be treated if it was cause by infection or it could have been inflammation (they couldn't remember which)[/quote]

Does that mean they would rule out treating heat-stroke? We've had a few hot dogs out of cars / greenhouses / "he was just lying in the back garden" etc, etc

K x

Re: When to treat pyrexia?

Steph Worsley — Mon, 01 Aug 2011 18:12:07 GMT

depends what you mean by treating it?? if you mean actively cooling then we do that over 41C, if you mean medication wise it all depends on what is causing the pyrexia so you should always do investigations into whats causing it prior to treatment otherwise you are going to mask the problem and it will more than likely recur