QuestionMy neice has a fever of 102.1 and last night 102.8. I have been giving her Tylnol per her mother however her fever has only gone down to 101.2 then spikes up again. Besides cold rags on her what can I do to help get this fever down. She is 13.
AnswerFirst, you should try and figure why she has the fever... is it strep throat, pneumonia, a virus, or other things. To treat fever, typically we use tylenol or advil at the dose of about 10 mg/kg per dose 4 times per day. What that means is take their weight in pounds, divide by 2.2, the multiply by 10, and use that many milligrams of the meds. For example, someone weighs 50 lbs, divide by 2.2, is about 22.7 kg, then multiply by 10, which is 227 mg of tylenol. It comes in 80 mg/tsp doses, so 3 tsp would be 240 mg, which is close enough. Same thing with Advil/Ibuprofen/Motrin, which is 100mg/tsp, so you could give 2 1/2 tsp of that, per dose to help with high fever. But, again, the primary goal is to find out why the person has the fever in the first place.
Hope this helps.....
