Your choice may come down to personal preference, but Taroyan does recommend going digital. Forehead thermometers are fast and easy but are expensive and error-prone, as are ear thermometers, which can even be affected by earwax. Armpit thermometers also require several minutes and can be less accurate.
“Oral, under-the-tongue thermometers take several minutes and may be altered by recently eating or drinking but otherwise can be fairly accurate,” she says. “There are many thermometers on the market today, each with pros and cons,” according to Taroyan. If you’re familiar with your usual temperature (such as, if you take it daily at the same time, or have a fitness tracker that records your temperature), you may also be able to see your personal temperature baseline. Given the wide range, how can you tell if you actually have a fever or not? You may have other symptoms of a fever, such as feeling warm to the touch, feeling flushed or having the chills. The starting point for fever in a child may also range from 99 degrees F (measured under the armpit) to 100.4 degrees F (measured rectally). Some research has suggested that the threshold for a fever should actually be lower the United States National Library of Medicine says an adult probably has a fever when the temperature is 99 to 99.5 degrees F or above. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention does note, though, that number may not be the same for everyone and that a fever really means a person’s temperature is elevated beyond their norm. If body temperatures vary from person to person, do fevers, as well? The standard criteria for a fever, Taroyan says, is 100.4 degrees F or 38 degrees C. Autoimmune conditions, like rheumatoid arthritis and lupus.Bacterial infections, such as urinary tract infections.Many conditions can cause a fever, such as: This is why some autoimmune diseases, which cause inflammation, also sometimes cause fever. “But fever is not synonymous with infection, because it can be triggered by any inflammatory response.” “Fever is an inflammatory response - inflammatory proteins, called cytokines, trigger the hypothalamus in the brain to increase body temperature,” Taroyan says. When you’re sick, your body fights off infection, which raises your body temperature. In addition, a woman’s menstrual cycle may raise body temperature by 1 degree or more after ovulation. “It can also vary based on other factors like heavy clothing, physical activity, hot weather, warm foods and recent immunizations,” she explains. For example, does body temperature change during the day? Yes, and it’s usually higher in the evening. Taroyan says that many factors can influence the average temperature range. “For a typical adult, body temperature can be anywhere from 97 to 99 degrees F.” What can influence your body temperature
“Normal body temperature may be slightly higher or lower than 98.6 degrees F,” Taroyan says. Doctors are now recognizing this variation in temperatures. It seems like people’s bodies are actually less warm than they used to be. A recent large study found adults’ average temperature today to be 97.8 degrees F. One study that looked at body temperatures since 1862 found a steady decline (a fraction of a degree) every decade, even when accounting for different methods of measuring temperatures. New data seem to point to temperatures trending downward in the last century and a half. How normal temperatures for adults have changed But in the age of COVID-19, in which fever is a main symptom, how does this shift affect how doctors determine a high body temperature? Let’s examine the evidence. Recently, the thinking on body temperature has changed a bit based on more current data. “A German physician came up with 98.6 degrees F, or 37 degrees Celsius, as the average human temperature, after obtaining millions of axillary (armpit) temperatures from 25,000 patients in 1851,” says Rose Taroyan, MD, a family medicine physician at Keck Medicine of USC and clinical assistant professor of family medicine at the Keck School of Medicine of USC. If you’ve ever taken your temperature only to wonder if you’re cold-blooded after getting a low reading, it could be because the standard 98.6 degrees F is based on some very old research. It’s 98.6 degrees Fahrenheit, right? Not necessarily, and here’s why that matters.
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