How are you taking your temperature? Infrared sensor on the forehead? Infrared only measures surface temperatures and can give false readings of temperature based on how the body "radiator" system is working.
The fluctuations aren't that bad. Now, I don't trust the infrared sensors myself, because I can't see the "local gradient" of what they're measuring, nor how it changes momentarily (why does it always take a second or two to measure?), and there certainly are areas on the face that vary by whole degree centigrade in temperature.
How do I know? Because I got so annoyed at the IR thermometers that I recently got myself one of those USB-C thermal cameras (UTi721M, specifically). It's like a 256x192 array of IR thermometers, measuring continuously, so you actually see what's going on. Lots of interesting things you can learn that way, for example that cheeks, chin and nose can easily be 1-2℃ cooler than the forehead, or that the neck/throat shows about the same temperature that the forehead, but seems more stable. And, it's much faster to take temp of everyone at home in one go. And then you also can learn a lot about your own environment, too. I highly recommend this to anyone.
That said, I found in-ear IR most reliable, and use it as a baseline for health checkups. You do however need to watch out for insertion - if you put the head in the ear too fast and measure immediately, you can get a result that's a degree or two centigrade above correct, which I imagine is because of momentary friction heating.
TeMPOraL|1 year ago
How do I know? Because I got so annoyed at the IR thermometers that I recently got myself one of those USB-C thermal cameras (UTi721M, specifically). It's like a 256x192 array of IR thermometers, measuring continuously, so you actually see what's going on. Lots of interesting things you can learn that way, for example that cheeks, chin and nose can easily be 1-2℃ cooler than the forehead, or that the neck/throat shows about the same temperature that the forehead, but seems more stable. And, it's much faster to take temp of everyone at home in one go. And then you also can learn a lot about your own environment, too. I highly recommend this to anyone.
That said, I found in-ear IR most reliable, and use it as a baseline for health checkups. You do however need to watch out for insertion - if you put the head in the ear too fast and measure immediately, you can get a result that's a degree or two centigrade above correct, which I imagine is because of momentary friction heating.
huytersd|1 year ago