Feeling cold?

The other day I stumbled upon an interesting article entitled "Chronic Fatigue Syndrome and Low Body Temperature" by Dr. David Jernigan of Hansa Center for Optimum Health. He is of the opinion that a low body temperature creates a "happy home for viruses and chronic infections, and is a sign of degeneration and gradual cellular death." As the body’s core temperature decreases all cellular energy also decreases thereby leading to profound and chronic fatigue that is not relieved by sleep. In his article he also summarizes the effect a cold body core temperature has on the circulation system, including peripheral circulation problems and cravings for high sugar based foods to increase the body's heat production. As you probably know, these are two issues every diabetic has to deal with on a daily basis.

According to Dr. Jernigan, it is essential to monitor and graph your core body temperature upon awakening but before getting out of bed and sometime between 8 and 10 pm. Evidently the healthy body has daily temperature fluctuations (diurnal) with the coolest temperature upon awakening in the morning hours of 6-8 a.m. and the warmest being in the evening between 8-10 p.m. There should be a difference between the morning and evening temperature, in a healthy person, of at least 0.9° F (0.5° C).

The core body temperature is the temperature taken under the tongue. After doing some research (okay, okay, after Googleing a bit) it appears that it is best to use a digital basal thermometer as they record much smaller temperature changes than an ordinary thermometer. As for the temperature you want to see, Dr. Jernigan maintains the optimal core body temperature is 98.6-99.6°F, with 98.6° F being the minimum.

So, today as part of my continued life-logging project, I am off to purchase a basal thermometer. I've already gone online and purchased an iPod app for tracking blood temperature. I settled on BT Monitor.

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6/13 Just a followup comment - my core morning temp turned out to be 96.5! That is more than 2 degrees colder than it is supposed to be. Hmm...