Inflammation is a vital
part of the body’s immune response to protect itself. It is the body’s attempt to heal itself after
an injury, repair damaged tissue and remove harmful stimuli and heal the area
completely.
Without inflammation, the
wound fester and infections could become deadly. Inflammation is characterized by redness,
swelling, warmth and most of the time pain in that area and sometimes
immobility. When you accidently strike
your toe against something and injure yourself, the immune process starts,
biochemical process release proteins called cytokines as ‘emergency signals’
that bring in your body’s immune cells, hormones and nutrients to fix the
problem. Arteries, dilate, blood flow
increases to that area and capillaries become more permeable so that the white
blood cells, nutrients and hormones can move into the spaces between the
injured areas to help heal the body.
Hormones called prostaglandins create blood clots to try to heal the
damaged tissue and remove them when healing is finished, they also trigger pain
and fever as part of the heal process. Swelling
happens because fluid accompanies the white blood cells. The fluid diffuses into the area and causes
the swelling that can cause increased pressure to nerve endings and thus pain.
We need to know that Inflammation
in the body are of two types, Acute and Chronic Inflammation, sometimes also
called systemic inflammation. Acute
inflammation arises after a cut or scrape in the skin like the above case, it
is short term and the effects subside after a few days. Chronic Inflammation is long term and occurs
in wear and tear conditions, including osteoarthritis, autoimmune disease such
as hypothyroidism, psoriasis, asthma and many others.
Remember that
inflammation is a necessity for the body to heal itself at the same time too
little inflammation could lead to progressive tissue destruction by the
invaders and allow the survival of the invaders. In contrast, chronic inflammation may lead to
a host of other disease over a period of time.
Also remember that
Inflammation does not mean infection, even when an infection cause inflammation,
infection is caused by bacterium virus or fungi, while inflammation is the body’s
response to such infection.
