Everyone deals with inflammation from time to time. Acute inflammation is a natural response of the body’s immune system to injury or infection and plays a crucial role in the healing process. However, chronic inflammation is when your body continues to send inflammatory cells even when there is no injury or infection. If you’ve got inflammation that doesn’t go away, it can lead to various health problems. Before that happens, you’ll want to see your chiropractor.
Contributing Factors
Chronic inflammation can sneak up on people. It can be the result of an autoimmune disorder where your body actually attacks healthy tissues, as is the case with rheumatoid arthritis, Crohn’s disease, and some thyroid conditions, to name just a few.
Exposure to pollution, chemicals like those found in household cleaners and personal care products, and other toxins can cause chronic inflammation.
Lifestyle choices can also contribute to chronic inflammation such as excessive alcohol consumption, being overweight, stress, smoking, and lack of exercise or even over exercising.
Symptoms or Root Cause
If you visit your allopath, the prescribed “treatment” for minimizing your inflammation will likely involve pharmaceuticals. Nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs or NSAIDS are over-the-counter medicines such as ibuprofen, aspirin, or naproxen.
Steroid injections are also used, given directly into the specific joint, muscle, or even your spine. These are all temporary relief at best, not dealing with the cause of your inflammation but attempting to deal with the result of your inflammation, often pain.
If you visit your chiropractor and choose instead to focus on the care of your spine and nervous system, you’ll be dealing with the root cause instead of the symptom of inflammation.
The Connection Between the Spine and Inflammation
The nervous system is responsible for coordinating the body’s functions and maintaining overall health. The spine, comprising a series of vertebrae, protects the spinal cord, which serves as your I.T. system, a communication highway for the nervous system. Misalignments or dysfunctions of the spine, known as subluxations, can disrupt the proper functioning of the nervous system. This interference may compromise the body’s ability to regulate inflammation, leading to an increased inflammatory response.
Chiropractic Adjustments
A chiropractic adjustment will directly address any subluxations and restore proper alignment to the spine, thereby improving nervous system function.
Once your nervous system is functioning at higher levels, your inflammatory response is better regulated, and that results in reduced inflammation.
Chiropractic adjustments also reduce the production of inflammatory agents in the body. Cytokines, proteins that regulate the cells of the immune system, if allowed to build up can cause a severe inflammatory response. Studies show that chiropractic care can reduce the production of pro-inflammatory cytokines. This reduction helps not only the affected area of the body, but the body as a whole.
Feel Good
Whether you are experiencing pain, stiffness, reduced mobility, or other inflammation-related symptoms, regular chiropractic care can improve the functioning of your body and reduce or eliminate inflammation and its related issues. If that alone doesn’t make you feel good, research has shown that chiropractic adjustments release endorphins, the body’s natural painkillers and mood enhancers. As an added bonus, endorphins also have anti-inflammatory properties.
The Right Path
No one wants to be tied to pharmaceuticals for a lifetime, particularly when they only deal with the symptoms and not the root cause. And no one wants to deal with chronic inflammation and the potential for other diseases as a result. That’s not 100:100, that’s not part of the 100 Year Lifestyle.
Make the decision to take the path that leads to health and vitality, living at 100% for 100 years or more. Choose healthy longevity today. It’s not too late to start taking care of your spine and nervous system. Find a 100 Year Lifestyle provider near you today!