Fighting Pain and Chronic Inflammation in Baltimore
Chronic inflammation is a term not usually bantered about in the popular media but it should be. The consequences of chronic inflammation in your body could be placing you at serious health risks and leave you suffering in unremitting pain syndromes. The true danger in chronic inflammation is that is very insidious and you may not notice its presence. Unlike acute inflammation that have definitive warning signs chronic inflammation may be present and you will never know it.
Acute inflammation occurs with injury. You have seen the swelling and inflammation in your ankle when you have twisted it. This is an example of acute inflammation. Chronic systemic inflammation is usually on the inside of the body where it is not evident until a terrible calamity occurs. What type of calamity may occur? Ignoring chronic systemic inflammation will not make it go away. The first inkling you may have of it being a factor affecting your health is when you are diagnosed with a disease that is common in Western civilization. Such diseases may include cancer, fatty liver, Type 2 diabetes, Alzheimer\'s, depression, chronic pain, and vascular diseases such as heart disease, vascular disease, peripheral artery disease, and impotence. All of these vascular diseases revolve around the clogging of arteries with cholesterol.
Interestingly, the symptoms that may result from chronic systemic inflammation include both physical as well as mental syndromes. A menagerie of symptoms such as these can significantly affect a person\'s life. This is a serious situation. But what exactly is chronic systemic inflammation, how does it occur, and what causes it?
Chronic systemic inflammation occurs when your body is in a state of constant battle with potentially harmful substances. The potentially harmful substances that may be at the root of chronic systemic inflammation commonly include infection, certain foods, overuse injuries, trauma, environmental pollutants, medications (or illegal drugs), and lifestyle choices. If chronic systemic inflammation is so easy to initiate and lies hidden until terrible things happen to you how can you tell if it plagues you or not?
An easy and relatively innocuous way to detect the presence of chronic inflammation is to do blood work that specifically looks for C-reactive proteins, antibodies such as immunoglobulin G (commonly referred to simply as IgG) and immunoglobulin A (IgA). When combined with glucose and triglyceride level tests a picture of the presence of whether chronic inflammation is present or not begins to appear. The determination of the presence of chronic inflammation may be relatively easy and innocuous to perform but the lifestyle and eating habit changes necessary to reduce chronic inflammation is much more difficult.
Revising your diet is not an easy task because you have been eating the foods you are familiar with all your life. And it is these types of food that may be causing your chronic systemic inflammation. The two major foods causing chronic inflammation are sugar, flour, and the foods containing them. This may include gluten-containing foods such as cereals and bread, trans-fats, omeg-6 fatty acids commonly found in corn, cheese, and fatty meats, as well as dairy products.
So what is there left to eat? You can help reduce chronic inflammation by eating lean meat (preferably grass-fed), fish, leafy green vegetables, cruciferous vegetables, seaweed, sweet potatoes, fresh fruit, nuts, and beans. Some good news is that dark chocolate is on the good-foods-to-eat list!
Oils that are good to consume or prepare cooked foods include olive oil, coconut oil, tuna oil, calamari oil, and black currant seed oil. Common spices and herbs on the good-foods-to-eat list include cinnamon, ginger, turmeric, garlic and rosemary, all of which have anti-inflammatory properties. Only small amounts of oils and spices may be necessary to achieve the desired results.
If your Doctor of Chiropractic advises you use such a diet to get your chronic systemic inflammation under control to better keep your pain in check it would be in your best interest to put some serious effort into making the leap into a healthier body as soon as possible.
