It would be easy to get the false impression that all inflammation is evil and should be avoided at all costs. But, like most things in life, there is more nuance than that…
Inflammation is not always the enemy.
On one hand, short-term inflammation is a very good thing. When you injure yourself, the body responds with increased heat, swelling and pain fiber activation in the local area (i.e. inflammation).
These reactions are normal and beneficial – the steps everyone must go through to bring the appropriate resources to the injury site and heal.
However, even low levels of long term or chronic inflammation are where you run into issues. Chronic inflammation is at least a piece of the puzzle in people dealing with pain anywhere in the body, migraines, GI issues, depression/anxiety, sleep issues, thyroid issues, fatigue and more. In a chronically inflamed state, the body is diverting resources that it should be using to maintain homeostasis in order to deal with the inflammation, and your health eventually suffers.
It would be like if there was a small fire in your kitchen every day – you would be spending a good amount of your energy and resources trying to put out that fire, while the rest of the house would slowly but surely fall into disrepair.
To continue with the analogy, anti-inflammatories would be like a cup of water to throw on the fire – great idea in theory and can be partially effective in the short-term, but if you are not dealing with what caused that fire to start and what continues to give it fuel, it will continue to burn.
The answer to dealing with a fire and chronic inflammation are the same: remove the fuel and use appropriate resources to put out the fire.
The “fuel” can be coming from a number of sources, but most commonly I see it coming from over-exertion (over-work and/or over-working out) with not enough sleep, poorly managed stress, and a poor diet.
These reactions are normal and beneficial – the steps everyone must go through to bring the appropriate resources to the injury site and heal.
However, even low levels of long term or chronic inflammation are where you run into issues. Chronic inflammation is at least a piece of the puzzle in people dealing with pain anywhere in the body, migraines, GI issues, depression/anxiety, sleep issues, thyroid issues, fatigue and more. In a chronically inflamed state, the body is diverting resources that it should be using to maintain homeostasis in order to deal with the inflammation, and your health eventually suffers.
It would be like if there was a small fire in your kitchen every day – you would be spending a good amount of your energy and resources trying to put out that fire, while the rest of the house would slowly but surely fall into disrepair.
To continue with the analogy, anti-inflammatories would be like a cup of water to throw on the fire – great idea in theory and can be partially effective in the short-term, but if you are not dealing with what caused that fire to start and what continues to give it fuel, it will continue to burn.
The answer to dealing with a fire and chronic inflammation are the same: remove the fuel and use appropriate resources to put out the fire.
The “fuel” can be coming from a number of sources, but most commonly I see it coming from over-exertion (over-work and/or over-working out) with not enough sleep, poorly managed stress, and a poor diet.
In Chinese Medicine, we identify the resources you need by first evaluating your symptoms to determine how your body is trying to cope with the chronic inflammation. That evaluation leads us to a diagnosis that we can then use to prescribe acupuncture, herbal therapy, dietary therapy and lifestyle changes to help give your body the resources it needs to get the inflammation under control.
