What is Inflammation?

             Inflammation is part of our body's own healing response. The phases include hemostasis, inflammation, proliferation, and remodeling. The initial goal of inflammation in an acute stage is to help protect the body. In fact, if we did not have inflammation as part of our natural healing strategies, minor tissue injuries could turn severe. Chronic inflammation, on the other hand, is not as good for the body. 

             Acute inflammation typically has certain characteristics with it such as swelling, pain, redness, heat, and often a loss of function. For example, imagine turning your ankle. Acute inflammatory response characteristics typically occur immediately after. So what is happening in this time frame after the injury? We have an abundance of blood flow that rushes to the area carrying different cells and chemicals to help clot the blood. Our cells create inflammation to help it heal while protecting itself. In a normal recovery process, we start to slowly decrease our pain, swelling, redness, the warming sensation, and improve our function again as the healing process continues. This typically takes place anywhere between a few hours to a few weeks depending on the severity of the injury.

            Chronic inflammation is when you have a constant stimulus that causes our body to stay in that protective state. This stimulus can range significantly from person to person with physical, emotional, and chemical stressors. Chronic inflammation can last months and even years. Think of that back or neck pain you have had for years and the constant stiffness that you now notice in the morning due to that pain. What about that sciatica, muscle pain, carpal tunnel, joint pain, or even the pain in the tendons (tendinitis is acute, tendinopathy is chronic) at your shoulder or heel? Even our modern-day chronic diseases lead back to this chronic inflammation in the body. After the initial injury/trauma to the tissue, our body begins to heal but is then exposed to a stressor again that then puts it back into this inflammatory state. This cycle continues over and over again resulting in chronic pain.

            Think of a finely tuned alarmed system. When something harmful happens, it triggers the alarm. This then kicks off the stages of healing. The more times this alarm triggers, the more sensitive it becomes. Now we can barely handle minor trauma due to our alarm system being on over drive. The widespread thought of "no pain, no gain", does not really hold up in truth. Don't push into pain! Think of a cut on the back of your finger. Do you constantly bend your finger over and over re-exposing the cut which in turn causes more pain to be produced? No!

           So how do we treat this in therapy? We use natural healing strategies to help the body heal like it is meant to do. We perform techniques that help to calm that overactive alarm system to help the body function as it should. When it comes to pain, we take a hands-on approach that includes dry needling, cupping, instrument assisted soft tissue mobilization, spinal manipulations, and many other techniques. We get to the problem and don't just treat the symptoms!

              Whether it is acute or chronic inflammation, don't live in pain! Call us now and schedule an appointment, and let us get you out of pain!