In regards to rehabilitation, we generally view inflammation as a negative process of our body; something to get rid of or prevent. However, it is important to know that inflammation within your body is a normal response. In most cases you could even say that it is imperative that your body has this response take place.

So how can there be both positive and negative inflammation, and how do you differentiate between them? Read on to find out more.

 

What is inflammation?

Inflammation is an immune response to injuries and harmful things that enter your body. This consists of a complex mixture of cellular processes and reactionary responses including various hormones and chemicals. Varying from person to person, and situation to situation. We will go into more examples later, but let’s first examine a minor muscle strain:

There will be damage on a cellular level (regardless of if there was an impact causing direct soft tissue trauma, or a movement induced injury resulting in the soft tissues tearing apart slightly). This will cause fluids to leak out of injured cells as well attract new and different types of cells to flood in and help with cleanup and containment. These usually contain things like histamines, immune cells, bradykinin, prostoglandin, and phagocytes.

Together these cause swelling and will help to isolate the injured area from the rest of your body. It will also help to ensure that only the proper cells will be within that injured area. The swelling will cause some muscle rigidity and a slight loss in mobility (with regards to that specific areas range of motion). This makes your body less likely to aggravate the injured site as it maintains these conditions, and allows the best chance for your tissues to heal.

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Regardless of what causes the inflammation there will be five cardinal signs of its presence:

1) tissue pinking or redness

2) localized soft tissue or joint swelling

5) loss of function (with regards to mobility or weakness of specific actions)

3) localized heat generation

4) pain – can be specific or scattered in sensation

Please note that some people refer to inflammation as the inflammatory response / process. Inflammation and those two listed alternatives are often used interchangeably.

Positive Forms:

Here are three examples that you may not have thought about as inflammation: a paper cut, fighting off an infection, and following exercise. After the above listed signs it will be easy to see why they are indeed inflammatory responses.

 

Image found via Google Image Search, but pulled from http://www.skindnacanada.com

Think about what happens immediately after getting a paper cut: the surrounding area will be swollen / puffy, some tenderness and maybe even itching will follow. These are a direct result of both the cut and the further swelling (which will stretch the tissues). Redness will likely also show up in that specific injured area of tissues.

The effects are a result of white blood cells, proteins, plasma, clotting factors and chemicals that have responded to help patch up your cut and protect the immediate tissues from that outside environment. All are necessary to the healing of the cut, but are also there for the prevention of foreign bodies getting into your body via the open cut. You could apply this exact scenario to a wooden sliver as well. Where you would feel the effects even more so if you left the sliver in and did not remove it immediately.

 

Image found via Google Image Search, but pulled from http://www.hercampus.com

For the second example of positive forms of inflammation we will look at fighting off an infection. When your body does this, you will feel swollen lymph nodes (the most obvious generally being just below your jawline at the front of your neck). You may feel odd sensations throughout your whole body or in a specific localized area.

A fever (febrile state) is almost guaranteed to take place. This is your body increasing its core temperature to effectively “bake” out an infection or bacteria from being able to replicate itself. You can usually experience muscle or joint stiffness, weakness, or aching as well at this time. The elevated temperature and swelling usually result in the other effects listed here, but these are necessary byproducts just as in the case of the paper cut or sliver.

 

Image found via Google Image Search, but pulled from https://www.moh.gov.bh

Finally, something a bit more applicable to our business.. how is post-workout soreness a form of inflammation and why is it positive? Well simply put: vigorous exercise, especially when trying to promote muscle growth or hypertrophy, will cause muscle fibers to fray or tear apart (on a very minor level). The inflammatory process is your bodies response to try and strengthen you.

Think of all these minor tears as very tiny paper cuts. A large benefit is that within your body these are not open to the outside environment, but your body will still send various antibodies, chemicals and histamines there to create a barrier around the “injured” tissue. This will protect them from the surrounding tissues because it will eventually cause your body to guard the affected tissues and area as a whole.

This guarding (known as muscle guarding) will help you keep the area a bit restrained, meaning that you are less likely to aggravate these fibers that are trying to heal. Once the fibers have healed, you know that the injured tissues have actually been reinforced. This results in your muscles being be even stronger than before!

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After all of these forms of inflammation your body will flush out the unnecessary and excess cells, and you / the area will return to normal. Life does go on, but the old saying of “too much of something good, is actually bad” proves to hold true here as well. Which is what we will get into now…

The Negative Effects:

Where we get into proverbial hot water is when our body overdoes the above scenarios. This can be something as simple as sending too many histamines (or sending them too often) to a specific area. Which can result in you constantly feeling like you have symptoms similar to an allergic reaction.

It could also be a bit more complicated or severe in that it does the previously mentioned muscle guarding a bit too well. This protection can cause other movements that should not be affected to be restricted as well. A neck muscle injury can in turn then affect movements in your shoulder(s), arm(s), or torso. Restricted movements can decrease your ability to sleep, participate in activities, or work. Everyday tasks can be affected and limited, which will also have an effect on your psychological state or overall quality of life.

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Perhaps more common than above are issues with re-injuring the area before the inflammation process has completed. This is the stronger reason as to why inflammation is viewed as negative. Think for a second if you trained every single day with weight training (whether trying to build mass or strength) and never took any time to rest. Your body will do two things: constantly re-injuring or tearing those previously frayed muscle fibers, but more importantly this will constantly be signalling the inflammation process to re-start.

The issue with the first should be obvious.. Your muscles did not have the proper time to fortify themselves, and thus you are approaching each workout or training session with fatigued and weaker muscles. This is all together reckless and opens yourself up to not only a broader and more obvious injury with each training session, but also makes an injury during other daily activities much more likely. Think picking up a bag too fast or rolling over in your sleep awkwardly – things that for healthy tissues should be no problem at all.

The second issue of constantly re-engaging the inflammatory response is what will ultimately lead to chronic inflammation. Unlike most other forms of a chronic issues, chronic inflammation will present as though the issue is virtually always new. You will have some periods of time where it is better, but for the most part it will constantly feel as though you just injured yourself. The long-standing reality of a chronic condition is why and where you open yourself up to certain diseases or conditions too.

Chronic inflammatory conditions / diseases:

— arthritis (inflammatory condition of the joints)

— vasculitis (inflammatory blood vessel disease)

— asthma (inflammatory lung disease)

— colitis / crohn’s (inflammatory condition of the bowels)

There is some evidence to suggest alzheimers, cancer, and diabetes can be associated with chronic inflammation, but it is hard to tell whether inflammation is the direct cause or if it is simply a contributing factor.

The list goes on and on, but I feel everyone reading this should know a few people with at least one thing on the above list. Some conditions may not be as obvious to identify as the initially outlined muscle injury or paper cut; but as with those examples, inflammation in your bowels or lungs (or anything under the surface) will not function as well as it would normally.

Other Causes of Inflammation:

— sleep deprivation

— stress

It should also be noted (although I personally feel that this is a bit blown out of proportion) that certain foods and substances are considered to have inflammatory properties as well. I will leave it in your hands to look these up on your own time if interested. But know that those same companies that offer these things also get to play the other side of the field and offer foods or substances with anti-inflammatory properties as well.

Knowing this, you should be aware that this is why there is such a negative perception on things that are considered “inflammatory”. The thought process here is that the more you are subjecting yourself to them, the higher your risk is of building a more serious chronic inflammatory condition. There is conventional wisdom here to be sure, but know that moderation is key. Going too much the opposite way will have bad results too.

What May Help Inflammation:

— hydrotherapy (warm bath, cool and damp towel, ice, etc.)

— massage

— rest

— compression

— elevation (i.e. if in knee, elevate above heart while laying down)

— proper diet (as touched on very briefly above; contact a dietitian for more information!)

— pain-free active range of motion

— NSAID’s (non-steroidal anti inflammatory drugs)

The important thing to keep in mind with all of this is that if you are doing things to mitigate or help with inflammation after it has helped your body heal, then you will have zero issues. As noted at the beginning: inflammation is a normal and vital part of our bodies processes in regulating its health.

 

I claim no ownership for the main volcano image (which was found at http://thiswallpaper.com)