How to Break a Fever: Ways to Bring Temperature Down and How to Know If You Should

It can feel uncomfortable or even painful to have a fever. When you’re sick and your body temperature rises, you might flip between feeling hot and feeling cold — and between shivering and sweating — at a moment’s notice. 

So, what should you do when you have a fever? Should you try to break it, or put up with the discomfort? It turns out that while a fever can be an important sign of illness, it isn’t usually a problem on its own. Wondering how to get rid of a fever? Let’s review the best ways to break a fever — and whether you should do it. 

What is a fever?

A fever is when you have an elevated core body temperature above its typical range. The normal human body temperature is about 98.6°F, but can vary slightly throughout the day. In general, a fever can be described by how high the core body temperature rises.

• Low-grade fever: 99.1°F to 100.4°F

• Moderate-grade fever: 100.6°F to 102.2°F

• High-grade fever: 102.4°F to 105.8°F

A fever is usually caused by inflammation in your body. Typically, the inflammation comes from an infection, like the flu or strep throat. But immune-related conditions, cancer, and even some medications can cause a fever, too.

When there’s a lot of inflammation in your body, your immune system releases chemicals that turn up the set-point of your internal thermostat. This makes your body act in certain ways to make itself warmer. For example, a fever causes you to shiver with chills because your body is trying to warm itself up — even though you’re not actually cold.

Over-the-counter (OTC) fever reducers work by interrupting the chemical signals that connect inflammation in your body to your internal thermostat.

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• Is a fever an emergency? Here are the signs of fever that let you know to get emergency care.

• Should you ‘starve a fever’ or ‘feed a fever’? Let’s review the myths and find out how best to treat a fever when you have a cold.

How to break a fever

There are a few different remedies to break a fever, and it’s common to use a combination of treatments. Let’s review common ways you could try to bring a fever down. 

Fluids

The first step for fever treatment is to increase the amount of fluids you drink. Having a fever makes it more likely that you can become dehydrated. Drinking plenty of fluids when you have a fever helps make sure that doesn’t happen. Drinking cool fluids can also help bring your temperature down. 

Rest

Resting is also important to help keep you cool when you have a fever. When you are active, your body temperature rises. Resting helps keep your body temperature low. Also, because a fever usually means you have an infection, resting can help your body have the energy it needs to fight your infection. There’s also some evidence that not having adequate sleep may cause your infection to worsen.

OTC fever reducers

Medications are often used to fight fever as well. Medications that stop or break a fever are called antipyretics. Common fever reducers are available OTC without a prescription. You’ll want to talk with a healthcare professional for guidance on which medications are best to try.

OTC antipyretics include:

• Acetaminophen (Tylenol)

• Ibuprofen (Advil or Motrin)

• Naproxen (Aleve)

• Aspirin 

Acetaminophen and ibuprofen can be safely used in infants, children, and adults. But it’s important to know that aspirin should never be used in children, since it has been linked to a dangerous illness called Reye’s syndrome. Naproxen should also be avoided in children until age 12 — it just hasn’t been studied as much in kids. 

Home remedies to break a fever

Many people try to treat fevers by cooling the outside of the body. They might try:

• Giving a sponge bath

• Taking a cool shower

• Removing warm clothing or blankets

But cooling the outside of the body isn’t always a good idea. While it might bring the measured temperature down slightly, surface cooling doesn’t affect the temperature deep inside the body (the core temperature). In fact, this can cause the core temperature to rise even higher in response, which can make shivering worse. 

What’s the best fever reducer for adults?

All of the OTC fever reducers do a great job at breaking a fever. These fever treatments include:

• Aspirin

• Acetaminophen (Tylenol)

• Ibuprofen (Advil or Motrin)

• Naproxen (Aleve)

Since they all work well, you may be wondering what to take for a fever? The best fever reducer for you will depend on a number of factors, such as: 

• Age

• Medical history

• Personal preferences 

People over the age of 65 or at high risk for kidney injury should avoid ibuprofen and naproxen. At high doses or when taken for long periods of time, these medications can cause kidney damage. Acetaminophen (Tylenol) for fever may be a better choice under these circumstances. But people who drink alcohol daily or have liver issues, should avoid acetaminophen. It can cause dangerous liver damage in some people. 

If you don’t like taking medication multiple times per day, you may prefer naproxen over ibuprofen. Naproxen only needs to be taken twice a day, while ibuprofen is dosed 4 times a day.

A healthcare professional can help you figure out the best medication to take to break your fever and limit your risk of complications. 

How long does it take for a fever to break?

In general, most OTC fever reducers, like ibuprofen, begin to act within 30 minutes. That doesn’t necessarily mean your fever will break in that amount of time though. How fast your fever will break will depend on the reason for your fever and how high your temperature has gotten. 

If your temperature isn’t too high, it’s possible that your fever could break 30 to 60 minutes after taking OTC fever medication. But if you’re very sick with a high fever, it’s possible that your fever doesn’t break even an hour or two after taking fever reducers. 

Some people can take multiple fever reducers when it’s taking a long time for a fever to break. It’s common to take acetaminophen and a nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drug (NSAID), like ibuprofen, at the same time to break a fever fast. These medications work in different ways, so it’s generally safe to take them together. 

It can also help to space the medications apart by a couple of hours when trying to break a fever. Many people do this to take a second medication before the first one starts to wear off. Both of these strategies make sense and you can choose which one works better for you.

But be careful not to take multiple NSAIDs together to break a fever. It’s not safe to take ibuprofen, naproxen, or aspirin together. It can cause severe health complications and stomach issues, including bleeding.

Should you break a fever?

It’s natural to want your fever to go away. But treating a fever doesn’t stop the infection that caused it — all it does is bring your temperature down. Even so, you might want to break your fever because:

• A fever can make you feel low.

• An extremely high fever (105°F or above) can cause damage to the body.

• A fever can cause dehydration.

• Fevers can make some people more likely to get a febrile seizure.

Does a fever have any benefits?

It seems likely that fevers happen for a biological reason. It’s not entirely clear why, but here’s what scientists have learned so far:

• Some germs, including the virus that causes COVID-19, slow down their growth when the temperature around them rises.

• Our immune system is more efficient when our body temperature is higher.

• A fever can weed out weak body cells — such as those damaged by an infection — and this might lower the amount of time you feel sick.

Aside from these natural benefits, fevers are helpful from a practical standpoint because:

• The pattern of your fever can give clues about the illness that might be causing it. It can help you track whether your infection is getting better or worse.

• Many modern antibiotics actually work better at warmer temperatures.

What should I do if I have a fever?

While a fever isn’t always harmful, you still shouldn’t ignore it. Most times, a fever is caused by an infection, and some infections can be serious. In general, it’s best to stay home. Your infection could be contagious to others.

There can be times when a fever requires medical attention. See a healthcare professional right away if:

• An infant younger than 3 months has a fever over 100.3°F.

• An infant 3 to 12 months old has a fever above 102.2°F.

• A child has a fever, and is unvaccinated.

• You have a very high fever (105°F or higher).

• You’ve had a fever for more than 3 days in a row.

• You have a fever plus other symptoms, like weight loss, rash, cough, or difficulty breathing, that you can’t explain.

• You’ve recently had surgery.

• You have a fever and are immunosuppressed, have an immune deficiency, or are receiving chemotherapy.

• You have an IV line, such as a PICC line, port, or central venous catheter.

• You take drugs recreationally through an IV.

Why trust our experts?

Written by:

Kerry R. McGee, MD, FAAP

Kerry McGee, MD, FAAP, has over a decade of experience caring for babies, children, and teenagers as a primary care pediatrician. She has a special interest in adolescent health, particularly in adolescent mental health.

Edited by:

Karla Robinson, MD

Karla Robinson, MD, is a medical editor for GoodRx. She is a licensed, board-certified family physician with almost 20 years of experience in health through varied clinical, administrative, and educational roles.

Reviewed by:

Farzon A. Nahvi, MD

Dr. Nahvi is an emergency medicine physician and author of “Code Gray: Death, Life, and Uncertainty in the ER.” He works clinically at Concord Hospital in Concord, New Hampshire, and is a clinical assistant professor of emergency medicine at the Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth. Prior to this, he worked as an ER physician and clinical assistant professor of emergency medicine at the Mount Sinai Health System, NYU Langone Health, NYC Health + Hospitals/Bellevue, and the Manhattan VA. He is a graduate of Cornell University and NYU School of Medicine.

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