As technology advances, scientists and medical professionals are finding that chronic inflammation is the root cause of many health conditions prevalent today. Questions arise then as to what is causing chronic inflammation and how to reverse it. Below you will find answers to questions concerning the causes and treatments of inflammation.

Inflammation itself is not a bad thing. The body is actually designed to produce inflammation to heal. In doing so the body increases the blood flow to an injured area and sends white blood cells to the area to heal it. Consider the swelling that takes place with a broken bone or an injury to a muscle or joint. These processes are a natural part of healing.

Unfortunately in our society today, and especially in the United States, the incidences of chronic inflammation have skyrocketed.

Chronic inflammation occurs when the body is continually trying to repair some kind of damage in the body, like a chronic infection.

It can also occur if the body sees a toxic substance (like heavy metals) and is trying to remove it, this can generate a chronic inflammation in the area as it tries to rid the area of the substance.

It can also occur as a result of an autoimmune disorder, where the body is erroneously attacking itself rather than the actual threat.

All these generate chronic inflammation, which is damaging all by itself and can lead to a variety of health conditions.

Dr. Minkoff Discusses Inflammation

Often people don’t know they have chronic inflammation until a disease shows up and they have to address it. It is often going on for long periods of time in the body before symptoms show up. It can be caused by the following:

• Poor nutrition
• Leaky gut syndrome
• Food allergies
• Environmental toxins
• Bacterial infections
• Viral infections
• Parasites
• Dysbiosis
• Stressful lifestyles
• Lyme Disease

As the body continually fights to repair damage to the mitochondria, symptoms of chronic inflammation begin to appear.

Health Conditions Caused by Inflammation

Left untreated inflammation will become chronic and the effects in the body will be  disease and disorders such as:

• Allergies
• Alzheimer’s Disease
• Arthritis
• Asthma
• Autoimmune Diseases
• Brain Fog
• Bronchitis
• Cancer
• Dementia
• Fibromyalgia
• Gut Health Issues
• Heart disease
• Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS)
• Joint Pain (Knee, Back, Neck, Hips, etc)
• Leaky Gut Syndrome
• Lupus
• Mitochondrial Dysfunction
• Neurological Disorders
• Osteoporosis
• Parkinson’s Disease
• Psoriasis
• Thyroid Diseases

Common Symptoms of Inflammation

Symptoms of inflammation are not always felt or perceived, especially in the beginning. If symptoms do present, they may manifest as:

In order to detect the presence of inflammation we check your bloodwork and may also run a variety of tests such as stool and urine tests.

Rather than trying to mask symptoms, LifeWorks Wellness Center locates what is causing the inflammation and addresses this. This stops the ongoing damage and allows the body to start repair and healng.

We treat inflammation using a variety of therapies depending on the unique cause of your inflammation. Therapies we may employ include:

• Ozone Therapies
• Hyperthermic Ozone and Carbonic Acid Transdermal Therapy (HOCATT)
• Ultraviolet Blood Irradiation Therapy (UVBI)
• Prolozone Therapy
• Allergy Elimination
• Pulsed Electromagnetic Field Therapy (PEMF)
• IV Therapy

If you think you might be suffering inflammation, it’s imperative to get it checked out. As we have discussed, chronic inflammation sets the stage and ultimately leads to many chronic diseases.

The difficult part of inflammation is that it often times goes unnoticed until disease symptoms are present or it is brushed off as part of the aging process.

If you suspect you have an inflammatory condition, you should get it checked out by a competent doctor, trained in diagnosing and treating the underlying causes of inflammation.

At LifeWorks Wellness Center, we have decades of experience in treating inflammation and helping patients uncover the underlying cause of it.

As you extinguish the inflammation, the body can now heal and reverse the disease process. Supported with proper nutrition and other modalities patients recover.

How Chronic Inflammation Develops

Here are some examples of how the inflammatory process can become chronic:

Dormant Viruses Can Cause Chronic Inflammation

When the body is exposed to a virus, the immune system normally reacts with elevated levels of white blood cells that attack the virus. This causes all the common cold symptoms. Once the virus is eradicated the immune response should subside. But if the pathogen hides, goes dormant, or remains present even at low levels, the condition continues to fester, leading to a chronic, low level of chronic inflammation.

Stress Can Lead to Chronic Inflammation

When the body is under stress, it releases inflammatory markers into the bloodstream called C-reactive proteins. Once the stress has passed, the inflammatory markers reduce, and the body is supposed to return to normal. But what happens if you’re under continual stress? C-reactive proteins are continually elevated in the blood, causing chronic inflammation. Over time, this can lead to many of the common degenerative diseases, like arthritis, heart disease and auto-immune conditions.

Autoimmunity Response Leads to Chronic Inflammation

Inflammation can be created when the body erroneously attacks itself. It can see it’s own cells and good bacteria as a threat. When the body starts attacking itself, this can manifest in organ dysfunction, which is labeled as an auto-immune condition based on which organ is being attacked.

Examples:

• Hashimoto’s can result with the thyroid is attacked
• Arthritis occurs when muscles and joints are attacked
• MS develops when the myelin coating of the nerves are attacked
• Atherosclerosis (heart disease) when the lining of the blood vessels are attacked

Any chronic inflammation left untreated will eventually develop into some kind of disease or disability.

Dr’s Videos on Inflammation