Inflammation is the process by which your body's white blood cells and the chemicals they produce protect you from infection by outside invaders like bacteria and viruses. However, in some disorders, such as arthritis, your body's defence mechanism, or immune system, causes inflammation even when there are no invaders to fight. In autoimmune diseases, your immune system reacts as though normal tissues are infected or otherwise unusual, causing damage.
Inflammation types:
Inflammation can be either acute or chronic in nature (chronic). Acute inflammation resolves in a matter of hours or days. Chronic inflammation can last for months or years after the initial cause has passed. Chronic inflammation is associated to the following conditions:
Inflammation and arthritis:
Some types of arthritis are the result of inflammation, such as:
Other painful joint and musculoskeletal disorders that aren't caused by inflammation include osteoarthritis, fibromyalgia, muscular low back pain, and muscular neck pain.
What are the symptoms of inflammation?
Symptoms of inflammation include:
Often, you’ll have only a few of these symptoms.
Inflammation may also cause flu-like symptoms including:
What causes inflammation, and what are its effects?
When you have inflammation, substances from your white blood cells enter your blood or tissues to defend you against invaders. This increases blood flow to the site of damage or infection. It can produce flush and warmth. Some of the chemicals cause fluid leakage into your tissues, which causes swelling. This protective process may produce nerve stimulation and pain.
Higher numbers of white blood cells and the things they make inside your joints cause irritation, swelling of the joint lining, and loss of cartilage (cushions at the end of bones) over time.
How are inflammatory diseases diagnosed?
Your doctor will ask about your medical history and do a physical exam, focusing on:
Can inflammation affect internal organs?
Inflammation can affect your organs as part of an autoimmune disorder. The symptoms depend on which organs are affected. For example:
You might not have pain with an inflammatory disease, because many organs don’t have many pain-sensitive nerves.
Inflammation treatment:
Inflammatory diseases may be treated with drugs, rest, exercise, and surgery to correct joint damage. Your treatment plan will be determined by a number of factors, including the type of disease, your age, the medications you're taking, your overall health, and the severity of your symptoms.
The goals of treatment are to:
Medications:
Many drugs can ease pain, swelling and inflammation. They may also prevent or slow inflammatory disease. Doctors often prescribe more than one. The medications include:
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