**Video Transcript**
What is your inflammation telling you? That is what I’m going to “decode” in this video. Have a look at a clip of the presentation now. This video is for educational purposes only and is not intended to provide any medical advice.
We hear a lot about inflammation these days, especially in alternative healing circles. We’re sometimes told that inflammation is the root of all disease and that we should do everything we can to try to put a stop to the inflammation.
Introduction to Inflammation
Many chronic health issues, chronic health conditions, involve inflammation or have inflammation as their hallmark, for example, asthma, allergies, arthritis, just to name a few; we’ll get into more.
These can come with a lot of uncomfortable symptoms. It’s understandable to want to try to reduce the intensity of those symptoms and the frequency of those symptoms as much as possible by either conventional or by even alternative methods.
Either way, is that really the best way to address the issue, to suppress the inflammation? Is that dealing with the problem or is it just kicking the can down the road, so to speak? Maybe the inflammation actually serves a purpose. What if the inflammation is your body’s way of trying to tell you something?
Understanding Inflammation
Perhaps the inflammation is just part of the healing process. Let’s get a look at what inflammation actually is and how we should handle the message that inflammation is sending us.
Just a quick run through what we’ll be covering on the outline here. Of course, we’ll be talking about what is inflammation, what are some of its signs and symptoms, what’s the difference between acute and chronic inflammation?
Chronic inflammatory conditions, some of the major ones. We’ll also cover the biochemical pathways involved with inflammation. Lab testing. Sometimes it’s useful to test for inflammation. And a big one here is what are some of the causes of chronic inflammation. Until we know that, then it can be very difficult to deal with it.
Finally, how we can help to manage inflammation that’s going on in the body.
What is inflammation? If a condition ends in the suffix itis. Then that means that it’s an inflammatory condition. For example, dermatitis is skin inflammation. Derma is the Greek word for skin, and -itis is the inflammation part.
It’s pretty simple that way. But the name of the condition just tells you that there is inflammation and where it is in the body, but it doesn’t tell you anything about what actually causes the inflammation.
In a nutshell, inflammation is healing. It’s really your body’s repair and restoration functions at work. We really want to try to support it. Inflammation is also information. It tells you that your body needs to be healed and then maybe the body needs a little bit of help. But we want to work with that healing process and not against it.
Signs and Symptoms of Inflammation
What does inflammation actually look like? There are five main hallmarks of inflammation: pain, swelling, redness, or discoloration of the skin, depending on the skin tone, heat and loss of function. Now these elements will vary depending on the condition. Some may only have one or two of these hallmarks, some of them might have all five.
For example, eczema or sometimes it’s called atopic dermatitis is a skin condition where there’s redness there is sometimes itching and burning associated with that as well, but some of the other symptoms may not be there. Whereas arthritis, you could have all five of these symptoms at least during part of the course of the condition.
Types of Inflammation: Acute vs Chronic
These are the basics of what inflammation is. There are two main types of inflammation. Acute versus chronic inflammation. The two different types here are really based on how long they last. Acute inflammation is quick onset. For example, if you break a bone or you get stung by a bee, you get a very quick onset and then inflammatory cells rush to the site and they start that healing process.
It tends to be self-limiting. Once the healing is done, then the inflammation will go away. And depending on what the damage is or whereabouts it is in the body it could last minutes. If you get a hive on your skin, it could pop up and it’d be gone in a few minutes. Or if it’s a fracture, it could be weeks or even months with some injuries.
Chronic inflammation tends to last a lot longer just by the name Chronic. This could be due to an injury that never really heals properly or sometimes it seems to just come out of nowhere. Although in my experience, that’s usually not what happens. It usually builds in the background, and it’s not until you start seeing some of the symptoms, the manifestations of it, that it actually appears to you.
But the chronic inflammatory state was actually going on even before that. It could be months, perhaps even years, and you didn’t even know it. It’s a lot like acute inflammation in many ways, but it just tends to last longer. Sometimes chronic inflammation can go through periods of relapse and remission. It’ll go away for a while and then it’ll come back.
This can be random or it can be a periodic thing, like for example, seasonal allergies. They’ll show up in the spring or maybe the fall, then they go away all winter and then they come back again the next year.
When the inflammation affects a certain area of the body, say a joint in the case of arthritis, it’s very easy to spot it. At that point where you get the pain, you get the swelling.
But sometimes inflammation of chronic inflammation or the symptoms I should say, are relatively mild and subtle. And they can be very non-specific. You may not actually know that they really have anything to do with inflammation.
Some examples of that are headaches, low grade fever, fatigue, even anxiety and depression. That’s going to make it a lot harder to figure out exactly what is causing the inflammation.
Let’s have a look at some chronic inflammatory conditions.
For the complete presentation, get access here: full presentation
Until next time, this is Dr. Pat Nardini, ND, putting “Your Wellness First!”
If you have questions about naturopathic medicine, or you’d like to take your first step into the world of naturopathy, contact us at Nardini Naturopathic, and let’s book an appointment.
Yours in health,
Dr. Pat Nardini, Naturopathic Doctor
320 Danforth Ave suite 206,
Toronto, ON, M4K 1N8
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Dr. Pat Nardini, ND is a licensed doctor of naturopathic medicine in Toronto, Ontario. He offers science based natural health solutions with a special focus on thyroid conditions.