Chronic Inflammation
preface - I am not a medical professional. all content on this blog is a collection of personal experiences and gathered information from different sources. this is not meant to diagnose or prescribe - it is merely a record and reflection of what i have learned and what has helped me along my healing journey.
Inflammation is the root cause of so many ailments, discomforts, and diseases. It is more than just joint pain, or swelling when you stub your toe, and it presents itself in many forms and on many scales.
After struggling with a variety of health issues, I connected the dots and finally understood that they were all tied to inflammation - and that was so key to beginning my journey to healing my whole body, not just 'spot treating' each problem individually.
There are two kinds of inflammation - acute (generally good), and chronic (bad).
Acute inflammation occurs when the body responds to damage i.e. a cut, sore throat, bruise, etc. There is usually redness and swelling indicating that blood is rushing to the site to heal whatever is threatening your body.
Chronic inflammation, on the other hand, doesn't go away and actually does damage to the body instead of healing it. Kris Carr, a holistic healing hero of mine, describes it so well...
"There’s a silent (yet violent) kind of inflammation that can take place without you even knowing it. What you eat, drink, and think (stress!), environmental toxins, smokin’, booz- in’, and even a couch-potato lifestyle can create a fiery cascade of inflammation in your body. When your body hits an inflammatory overload, your defense system gets so overwhelmed and confused that it literally doesn’t know the difference between the invader and you. As a result, your well-meaning immune system turns on itself, destroying healthy cells, tissue, and everything else in its wake."
-Kris Carr, Crazy Sexy Kitchen
About midway through high school, I began noticing a lot of things that made me feel like my body was failing me. I was painfully bloated every single day (somewhat related, but really a whole different story); I was constantly exhausted; my nails were yellow, pitted, and crumbling; I had bad acne on my face, chest, shoulders, and back (since 8th grade); and later in college, my hair suddenly began to fall out at an alarming rate...not to mention, I got sick a lot and it often took a long time to get over. Many of these things appeared slowly, and not only until I felt incredibly insecure about my appearance, too bloated to move, or too tired to want to get up every day and participate in life, did I realize that something deeper was wrong.
When my hair fell out in college, people told me it could be stress/the big change of moving to college. Among other things, the stress of change and working hard in school definitely took a toll on my body. And guess what? That's inflammation!
For YEARS, and I mean years (about 10), I was convinced I had some sort of nail fungus - and no doctor I went to seemed to have a clue, until FINALLY a dermatologist told me it was psoriasis, not fungus. Interestingly enough, psoriasis is an inflammatory disease.
The extreme bloating was related to a dairy intolerance - a discovery which lead me to an incredible relationship with food and an understanding how what we put into our bodies can be either poison or medicine. As Kris Carr said, food can most certainly cause inflammation, and I can 100% assure you that I have felt the terrible effects of eating inflammatory foods, causing my symptoms to worsen, and have also had major success monitoring and healing my inflammation through my diet as well. I have since realized the magnitude of a healthy gut microbiome to overall health.
It was honestly such a great feeling realizing that all of these problems were connected. Instead of tackling so many little things, it meant there was really one, large, underlying issue to address (inflammation) - and if successful, the many symptoms should fade away.
In terms of my successes, diet is my absolute favorite approach to inflammatory healing. We have the opportunity (on average, depending on how often you eat) 3+ times a day to nourish our bodies with beautiful, nutrient dense foods from the earth - essentially 3 opportunities to 'medicate' with antioxidants, vitamins, minerals, etc. in the most safe, natural, and healthy form available to us - whole plant foods.
On the other hand, we have the same number of opportunities to feed our illnesses - to fill our bodies with toxins, carcinogens, hormones, artery-clogging oils, and acidic foods (I don't mean citrus...I'm talking about the pH scale - something I will dive into more detail in another post).
Ideally, we'd be taking advantage of every opportunity to give our bodies what they need to thrive. Obviously, being human, we love chocolate, bread, butter, and salty fried foods, alcohol, coffee, etc. so we just have to aim to outweigh the bad with the good.
I like to think of it as a jar I’m trying to fill with coins. Every clean, wholesome, nutrient dense meal you eat/positive thing I do for my body, I add a coin. And every meal lacking those vital and balanced nutrients, most likely leaving me sluggish and inflamed, I remove a coin. Of course, this is not to shame or discourage meals that aren’t wholesome, nutrient dense, etc., because we have to feed our souls too! I try to think of it as not trying to reach the top of the jar tomorrow, but as a constant balance that leans a little heavier on the positive/nourishing side.
This can of course be frustrating - it is a slow jog instead of a sprint - something I have to work at constantly, but there's no other way to do it. Unfortunately, there's no end-all, lifelong cure. I’ve realized that my inflammation IS chronic and that managing it has to become a daily routine/a lifestyle, because it's not going to go away by ignoring it.
After I began to see all of these problems of mine as being connected to one another instead of standing on their own, I began to approach my health from a more holistic standpoint. If you find that you experience many different health concerns, no matter how small, they might be interconnected. The root cause could very well be underlying inflammation, which can effect the whole body and appear in different ways.
A few signs of chronic inflammation (especially if you suffer from multiple, like I do):
[this is not meant to diagnose - these are symptoms I’ve experienced and have seen repeated in many studies and articles]
joint pain & stiffness
digestive problems & bloating
constant exhaustion
hair loss
skin problems like psoriasis, acne, and eczema
brain fog
depression
anxiety
Inflammation can lead to much worse diseases, and whether or not you already suffer from more extreme inflammatory diseases, some of these less critical symptoms (uncomfortable nevertheless), or simply want to take preventative/progressive steps for your health there ARE ways to heal naturally and easily (with no side effects!)
The easiest ways to naturally fight inflammation are:
an anti inflammatory diet (will go into much more detail in future posts)
focus on FLOODING your meals with fruits, veggies, beans, nuts, and plant fats! The more of these you add in, the easier it is to push the bad stuff out.
De-stressing your life. This takes work, but emotional stress can wreak havoc on your health. Make more time for yourself and the things that recharge you.
Getting enough sleep! Ugh. Such a tough one, but so important. More specifically, get to bed BY a decent time (10 or 11 pm) and have a fairly regular sleep schedule.
I hope, more than anything, this post helps bring awareness to the potential interconnectedness of different health problems you may be facing, and a realization that there are simple, approachable, natural ways to take charge of your health. This was is just an introduction, as I'm hoping you'll find my experiences relatable, but I will be coming at ya' with some great tips, recipes, and more exciting stuff soon!
Happy healing!
Madeline
A few resources I used:
https://kriscarr.com/blog/5-tips-to-reduce-inflammation/
https://www.mindbodygreen.com/0-24782/10-signs-you-have-chronic-inflammation.html