Question about fever

Just going off the basic medical training I had in the Army here, so you'll probably get a better answer from someone else, but...

You don't necessarily get a fever from an unclean wound. The fever would develop from the infection if the wound were not healing properly, or if foreign objects/debris were in the wound.
Depending on the health of the individual and any other underlying issues, a fever could develop within 1-3 days.
You could have your character develop a staph infection. Since he suffered a knife wound, that would open the bloodstream to staph and that would definitely bring on a fever.

I think fever and inefection would set in the quickest if you got stabbed in the abdomen because theres lots of toxic stuff in there that has a nasty effect on the body if it starts to leak. Im not positive but I would think an infection would start to brew within 24 hours. How long the person survives would depend on their own constitution I guess. I know it took Houdini about a week to finally die of infection caused by a ruptured appendix, so some people can hang on for a while.

Is he healthy and well before the wound?

"Maybe I could just have him starting to feel uncomfortably warm at the 12-hour mark."


First off, I'm not a doctor, however, my youngest did develop an infection and a fever that peaked at 110F (yeah, the medical staff all marveled that they'd never seen a temp go that high and the person survive - my youngest DID survive).

Having said that... your character will not begin feeling warm when he's developing a fever, he'll be feeling cold and/or chilled. Your body temperature is rising, this makes the air around you feel cooler, so you feel cold rather than hot. And the whole 'sweating with a fever' thing? That doesn't happen either.

It was ten days after he got out of the hospital that he developed the fever, but when he went down, he went down FAST. He said he wasn't feeling well around 6pm, had a slight fever, so we gave him panadol. By 8pm he was curled up in bed with the blankets up to his neck and a sweatshirt on and couldn't stop shivering. Raced him off to the hospital (15 minute drive) (in hindsight we probably should have called an ambulance, but I've never used an ambulance in my life so it didn't occur to me).

They took one look at him in the emergency department and raced him inside for treatment.

So once he started going, he went down fast, but it took a while for him to actually develop the fever.


If you have your character get a really high fever he could hallucinate too. My son was lucid and coherent throughout, but he said my hair looked like it was made out of gold (I'm blonde).

PM me if you want any more details on how a stupidly high fever can affect a person.

A wound can begin to become infected after a few hours. Signs include deep pain, redness and puffiness around the would, off-color drainage, a bad odor, mild fever, etc. These signs probably would worsen over time. If your character has some knowledge of wound care, they would probably see these signs and realize they were in trouble. Your character is likely to notice these signs more than noticing a fever by itself. Depending on the wound, this stage can last a while or worsen very quickly.

Sepsis occurs as the infection spreads into the body, is super bad news and can kill in hours to one or two days.

The timing from initial infection of a wound to sepsis can vary hugely. A gut wound, as someone said above, can lead to sepsis very fast. A finger scratch may get infected, but it's unlikely to lead to sepsis, and if it does it will take a long time.

Keep in mind that someone saying a wound is "septic," means its infected. "Sepsis" is the state at which systemic inflammation in the body starts leading to organ failure.

Regarding chills, while it may be common, it isn't a universal reaction to fever. My husband usually feels cold and gets chills with his fevers, but I get hot and sweaty. I can always tell when I'm feverish because I feel hot just under my skin. I don't always feel warm to the touch, but if I take my temperature, it'll be elevated.

Often, my kidneys will feel tender, too. Not sure if that's from the fever or the underlying infection.

Sometimes I will develop chills later, but they will be short and intermittent.