Ask Dr. H: Humidity and moisturizer can cut down on static shock

Question:

What causes a person to be shocked every time he touches certain things? This happens to me both during the summer and winter.

Answer: As we all know, electrons can move from object to object, with some objects transferring electrical charges more easily than others.

For example, walking across a carpet can facilitate the transfer of electrons from the carpet to you. Those extra electrons are then transferred to a doorknob or another person with a harmless, but annoying, static shock. The dry air of winter facilitates the transfer of static electricity, unlike the more humid air of summer. However, air conditioning in the hot summer can cool air and reduce humidity so much that you may notice static shock. Keeping the humidity level at around 40 percent to 50 percent should keep static electricity at bay. Shoes with leather soles help to make us less conductive to static electricity. Also, cement and wooden floors are poor conductors, unlike carpeting. There are also spray treatments that can be applied to carpeting and clothing to help reduce static shock.

Using moisturizing soap and daily skin lotion, especially during the dry winter months, will also help against static shock. One last suggestion is to have a blood test to rule out hypothyroidism, since a slow thyroid can cause dry skin.

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Q:

I've always wondered why all my joints ache when I get a fever. It's definitely not the same pain I get from arthritis.

A: The fever we get with infection is a good thing, even though it makes us feel awful. It's a healthy response to bacterial, viral or fungal organisms that invade our body.

Their presence triggers our infection-fighting white blood cells to release fever-causing substances called "pyrogens." They act on the hypothalamus, the part of the brain that regulates our body's temperature.

In addition to pyrogens, there are a number of chemical messengers released by infection-fighting white blood cells that rev up our immune system's ability to fight off infection. In particular, the "interleukin" messengers do everything from stimulating white blood cells' fighting ability to promoting new blood cell formation.

The downside to interleukins is that they do cause side effects like flu-like symptoms of achiness in joints, as well as fever and chills. While an infection of a joint itself can cause pain and fever, joint pain from a general body infection promptly resolves once it has run its course.

When the fever comes down by using Advil, Aleve, Tylenol or aspirin, joint aches will ease as well, due to temporary blockade of interleukin production (and other messengers) by white blood cells. But even with this temporary slowing of interleukin production, there's still plenty of it around to help fight off an infection.