Are Rectal Temperatures Dying Out?

I have noticed that pharmacies in Canada are not selling rectal thermometers, but if you go to European Pharmacies they still do sell them, for myself I do know that the patients I do have I take their temp rectally each and every time and they do not have a problem with it.

Sadly, technology, accuracy, and efficiency are winning out in this area in my opinion. Thankfully there is this site for the fetish aspect to live on and to introduce it to others who missed out of a great era due to technology.

I think they do. what a pity!

Well don't mind it, here, we will continue to like it forever 😃

M.

It is not taken this way in california at all. To many new faster and accurate ways to take it :-(

Too bad ,in most countries rectal temperature are not being used anymore ,at least we have this forum to share our fantaisies and to keep them alive,.By the way I only have rectal thermometer and will never buy a new modern one.... :'(

Not in my clinic....

Alfdtuna,

Are you referring to a real clinic or a fantasy one? If real, what ages get rectal temps?

I would challenge anyone who said there was a more accurate way to take a temperature than rectally using a given technology of thermometer (i. e. mercury, digital electronic, etc.).

You say correctly ... 😃

Not at my place..... I love to take my girlfriends temperature.......

her butt looks so nice with her little hole open and the glass thermometer inside......

wowoo........

I am afraid that it si possible but it must be shame. But in my mind will be stile nice woman butt with long glass thermometer allways the best picture.

See...we all "want" rectal temperatures officially, but can only get them in play now....yes?

I hope they never do, I doubt I will ever receive one in a clinical setting though

Yes, I think so.

I'm not really sure, but I think to measure temperature rectally is more common in the States than here in Europe. I don't remember having seen a rectal thermometer ever.

I hope not

Maybe at the doctors office, but home, its alive and well lol! I love my oblong shaped glass thermometer!

I hope not

Unfortunately it seems so that rectal temperatures are dying out. New equipment are more accurate.

Well, a new rectal's equipment, will be still more accurate ....

The location is more, eheheh 😉

In real exams they sure seem to be. Even when an oral temp is not possible, they have other options. There's the ear thermometer of course. Once I even had my temperature taken (pretty accurately) by a scanner the nurse just pointed at my forehead for a couple of seconds.

Of course, that needn't stop us in play exams. Sometimes the old-fashioned way is best. :-)

I do not think Rectal Temperature taking will ever really fade....Even with changes to medical proceedure's & the introduction of new technological advancements they are still used ... Case in point being Hypothermia where constant monitoring is employed, also cases of heat exhaustion as well as body temperature reduction techniques employed to facilitate surgical /operative intervention.....In instances such as these accuracy is considered critical.

Times change (progress) as has the product, along with the way physicians view Rectal Temperatures particularly with standard consultation practice.

The days of bulbous mercury vial rectal temps in general practice have been consigned to history !!

With the advent of urinary catheters containing temperature probes, even in the hospital, the rectal temperature is all but dead. If you're sick enough to need continuous core temperature monitoring, you're going to have a catheter in place anyway.

The Mercury thermometer is definitely dead. Too toxic when it breaks.

I think that the more technology advances, the more rectal temperatures should be taken in addition to or instead of orally, under the arm (auxiliary), etc. Think about paper. We used to use a fair bit of it annually. When computers and smartphones became widespread, we did not stop using paper, as everyone thought; instead, we started using more paper due to needing to print, scan, etc. things from new technologies.

In my mind, rectal temperatures should be treated like the paper, and other newer methods like a document on the computer that needs to be printed.

You have always used the “paper” way. Then, slowly, people began to purchase computers. Soon, almost everyone has a computer, including yourself. The doctor’s office even has one in every exam room. You go to the doctor, and the nurse gets busy. She Types up your information, but then she needs to print it. So, she grabs a stack of paper, puts it in the printer, turns it on, and then hits “print.” Slowly but surely, the “paper” comes back out of the printer, this time with ink. Then, the doctor comes in. He asks a bunch of questions, which he types into a database. When he is done, he writes a prescription on a pad, then tears the “paper” off the pad and hands it to you to get filled.

I guess what I’m trying to say is, just like you can have paper without a computer but you cannot have a computer and not paper, you can have a rectal temperature taken without an alternate method but you cannot have an alternative method without it being followed by a rectal temp.

I think to some extent that they are dying out due to issues with modesty as we become more and more a Politically Correct Society, and nudity in a medical setting is seen almost a taboo. Also with the advancement of technology its much faster if not as accurate to get a temperature using a tympanic thermometer and safer than using rectal mercury thermometers ( in terms of breakage and mercury clean up).

I work in Critical Care and we still use rectal temperature ( as its is the gold standard for trying to establish core temperature) for monitoring our patients temperature. We use rectal temperature probes that are left in situ for continuous temperature monitoring.

However with the advent of the urinary catheters with a temperature port we are using this as all our patients havbe a catheter in situ. We also have a few tympanic thermometers which our consultant really hates but does allow its use occasionally.

I hope they will not dying out. But with the invention of ear thermometers, today the temperature will not so often taken rectally like before...

I do think there has been some backlash against the vagaries of aural & forehead temperature readings. They're reasonably accurate for screening purposes, but to a small degree rectal readings have enjoyed a new appreciation. But only to a degree. I don't think, for example, they'll ever become standard for say BBT charting as they once were.

I recall only once having a rectal temperature taken outside play. I was about 4 or 5, and it was at home, taken by my mother. Our family doctor used axillary and oral, and when I had a tonsillectomy at age 6, I just missed the hospital cutoff age of 5 for rectal. Recently, every time I've been in a doctors office or the ER, oral has been used. No tympanic or forehead thermometers. I once witnessed a nurse trying to reason with a screaming toddler to get an oral temp at the ER. It was ridiculous. I can't imagine why they wouldn't just do rectal on a tot.

My mother always took my temperature rectally and I have always done it that way myself. But it is true, with all the other thermometer versions this one is not so popular anymore. I think it is a dying breed sadly 😢

Rectal temps are used only for babies or the unconscious patients who can't hold thermometers in their mouths. Ear, forehead and axillary temps are inaccurate and worthless. Ear temps can be used as a screening method.