system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
If fevers are the immune system's response to viral/bacterial infection, why do with try to reduce them? Is there a benefit to letting a fever run its course vs medicinal treatment?

It's my understanding that a fever is an autoimmune response to the common cold, flu, etc. By raising the body's internal temperature, it makes it considerably more difficult for the infection to reproduce, and allows the immune system to fight off the disease more efficiently. 

With this in mind, why would a doctor prescribe a medicine that reduces your fever? Is this just to make you feel less terrible, or does this actually help fight the infection? It seems (based on my limited understanding) that it would cure you more quickly to just suffer through the fever for a couple days.
gpt
Yep. It alleviates the symptoms when you reduce the fever. Also, in some cases, the fever can go ‘out of control’ and get way too high, which causes your own proteins to start unraveling. 

There are plenty of physicians who would agree that sometimes it’s best to just not take anything and let the cold run its course. Some will say that it does shorten the downtime In the case of viral infections because it allows a stronger immune response (so long as the fever is controlled and doesn’t get too high). Of course, the fever is unnecessary when antibiotics are available in microbial infections, so might as well relieve symptoms and fight the bugs. 

The concept is similar to inflammation. There we have another biological response that physicians work hard to suppress in order to relieve pain and facilitate healing because medicine has developed ‘better’ or alternative ways of healing. 

But obviously, fevers and inflammation kept us alive for hundreds of thousands of years- for the most part- and are interesting to talk about.