How Inflammation Affects Your Body
Bottom Line:
Inflammation is like a check engine light for your body. It’s developed to let you know something is not right, before something more serious happens. This is also the case with pain. Pain is present as a way of telling you that something within the body is not right, and if not addressed, could get worse.
The first step in discovering the cause of the problem is determining whether you have acute or chronic inflammation.
Acute inflammation is short-term and plays a critical role in healing and injury repair. Chronic inflammation on the other hand describes a condition where your immune system continues to produce white blood cells and chemicals even after the injury is gone.
Why it Matters:
The combination of chronic inflammation and an excess of white blood cells can cause some problems for your immune system. In some cases, your immune system may even begin to target healthy cells and structures. Over time, this can even start to damage the DNA of some cells.
If sustained over a long period of time, you may experience changes in your cells, tissues, and organs that can increase the likelihood of disease. Changing the cells, tissues, and organs have a massive effect on hormones released from certain tissues, ultimately effecting how these structures function fundamentally. Each piece within the body has its specific duty within the body, and inflammation disrupts its ability to do that duty.
Of course, one of the most significant challenges is that chronic inflammation can be invisible unless you know where to look.
What are the signs of Chronic Inflammation?
· Insulin resistance. Insulin helps control the sugar level in your blood, and inflammation could affect how well your insulin works. This means more sugar being left in the blood. This can lead to decreased energy, diabetes (Type II), heart attack, kidney problems, cancer, and even Alzheimer’s disease.
· Muscle weakness. Chronic inflammation can cause your immune system to mistakenly attack and inflame your muscles, which could make you weaker. Once again, with insulin resistance, our muscle cells are unable to get the energy required for energy to perform tasks. If they’re unable to use their most commonly used energy source (sugar), then they must rely on other fuel sources that are not as efficient for the body to utilize. It’s come to be found that this chronic muscular inflammation can also affect the blood vessels leading to muscle fibers.
· Fatigue. Fatigue is a sign of long-term inflammation and common in inflammatory diseases like fibromyalgia, multiple sclerosis, lupus, and rheumatoid arthritis. This chronic inflammation and fatigue decreases the body’s ability to perform certain task without experiencing pain. Inflammation and pain can commonly lead to fatigue.
Next Steps:
If you've been living with muscle weakness, fatigue, or other nagging pains, you may also be living with chronic inflammation. Chronic inflammation does not have to be something you continue to live with and can be improved by limiting the amount of stress within your body. A great way to decrease your body’s overall stress is to modify your daily, lifestyle choices.
It’s often your daily habits that contribute to this state of chronic inflammation
ProMove would love to help you combat your chronic inflammation by helping you establish a more consistent and healthy lifestyle plan going forward. We want to help you live your best! fd
We invite you to take the first step towards better health by scheduling your next visit with us today so we can work together to help you feel and function at your best.
Dalton Sealey DC, CSCS
ProMove Chiropractic & Performance
402.915.4901
drsealey@promovechiropractic.com
Science Source(s):
Signs of Chronic Inflammation You May Not Expect. WebMD. 2019.
Understanding Acute and Chronic Inflammation. Harvard Health Publishing. 2020.