<<Disclaimer: Verify this information before applying it to your situation.>> There have been 70 replies to my "low body temperature" (LBT) question and the "pre-Summary" I posted. Higher than Normal: Only 3 people replying said they were usually above the accepted normal 37 degrees C or 98.6 F. Another 3 said they ordinarily were low but that when they got hot because of fever or exercise they tended to get very, very hot. Remember, however, that originally I was asking who tended to have LBT and low values of other vital signs. ( Non-USA folks please pardon my lazy retention of the F-scale values that were used by a large majority of the replies I received. I have misplaced the program that would automatically do the conversions.) Lower than Normal: Almost all the remaining replies were from Celiac list subscribers reporting temperature readings which tended to be low (their own or some family member's). Of these, 13 replies reported LBT without specifying numerically how low; another 17 gave numerical values of their usual body temp or range; 30 others gave more elaborate information about temperature variation and relation of temperature to other vital signs and to health status. Rarely did replies specify how temp was taken (device and site). The usual normal range or average temps were from 92.0 to 98.0. 12 gave usual temps 96.5 or lower; 7 of these CD-niks reported regularly measuring 96.0 or below; readings my HMO's encyclopedia says are so low as to be occasion for hollering "HELP!". Eight replies fell in the range from 97.0 to 97.6. Diagnosed thyroid disorders as cause of LBT were reported in eleven replies. One of the the very low temp persons reported a normally-functioning thyroid. Four people said they had low WBC and/or failure of WBC to respond to challenge. Seven people reported that their health had been endangered one or more times because providers unacquainted with their body temperature idiosyncrasy would not recognize that they were suffering from a severe infection until other symptoms reached an advanced state. Counting myself (I have had three avoidable hospitalizations because LBT delayed treatment), that makes eight. There's a medical name for certain infections with no fever or reduced body temperature, Bacteremia, but the replies here were mainly from people for whom this was not an unusual occurrence . Six of the repliers described their typical response to gluten challenge as including reduction of body temperature (and some said BP fell as well). Difficulty of adjusting to environmental temperature change or cold figured in five replies. Skinny was the usual skinny on this. I can empathize with those who said their cold hand handshakes caused double-takes or who encounter wise-cracking nurses who ask "Are you sure you are alive?" Some of the responders mentioned Chronic Fatigue Syndrome. A recent experiment at National Jewish compared CFS subjects' core body temperatures with that of others using tiny swallowed transmitting temperature sensors concluded: "Subjects with CFS have normal CBT despite frequent self-reports of subnormal body temperature and low-grade fever." [ Hamilos DL et al. Core body temperature is normal in chronic fatigue syndrome. Biol Psychiatry 1998 Feb15;43(4): 293-302.] (I did not read the whole article and don't know whether the experimenters checked on whether there was greater discrepancy between CBT and orally measured temp for the CFS subjects.). Some messages mentioned that there were support groups for disorders other than CD on the web where LBT was a common subject of discussion including one where LBT was definitive of the condition. The latter, Wilson's Syndrome," has been attacked as a quack's cult: <http://www.quackwatch.com/04ConsumerEducation/News/wilson.html> . It seems to me there is a hustle associated with Wilson's Stick. For me, the addiction of orthodox medicine to "factoids" about temperature is a bit of quackery in its own right. Two replies liked the humor in my post, this perhaps another manifestation of a shared disorder.