Pain and inflammation are a natural and normal part of everyday life. Without pain, it might be impossible to know when you are hurt and without inflammation, you can’t begin the healing process. Also, all pain has some degree of inflammation, but not all inflammation has pain! This is important because without pain, inflammation can and will spiral out of control and this leads to a condition of chronic inflammation that does destroy tissue and cells.
Headaches and Migraines are two examples of pain with inflammation. The question is why? What causes the ongoing insult that result in a pain that can change and even ruin someone’s entire day? Sometimes the answer is simple and sometimes not so.
Some of the items that can cause Headaches are dehydration, lack of food, muscle tension, a lack of blood flow to the brain, or a subluxation of the cervical spine at the base of the head. These are just a few of the issues that can cause a headache, but the most important thing to remember is that if someone experiences headaches on a routine basis, then something is wrong and pills, drugs and NSAIDs are not the answer.
Migraines are different and in the class of life-changing events, as anyone who has them or anyone who lives with someone who has them can testify. Individuals with migraines will typically see a Medical doctor who should order some advanced testing to make sure that this pain isn’t being caused by something like a tumor. But assuming nothing of consequence is found, the best an MD can offer is a drug. But maybe looking for the underlying cause of migraines might be a better solution. Some of the causes that produce migraines are food sensitivities and cervical or blood flow occlusions. The only way to know for sure is with a proper examination and possibly advanced testing to find the underlying cause of this pain.
Inflammation, on the other hand, is something that our body is used to dealing every day. But the problem in today’s society is the constant insults that keep the body out of balance and always trying to heal. The typical, normal pattern is for our body to defend from insults during the day and then repair at night when we sleep. However, because of the constant insults and stress and lack of good sleep, our bodies are always defending and never get to fully repair. Without repair, inflammation continues to rage like a fire in the woods that never get extinguished and just keeps burning and burning.
What are these insults? Things like GMO’s in food, contaminated drinking water, processed foods, toxins in the air, even in make-up that women wear, accumulation of heavy metals in our body, and stress. There are probably many more, but the point is that our body is under constant attack and if we don’t defend, our health pays the price.
In order to know if someone is dealing with an underlying inflammatory process, simple blood tests need to be ordered to determine if inflammation is present and to what degree. Sometimes special tests need to be ordered if a normal healthy inflammatory process can’t be restored; but, knowledge about an individual’s inflammatory level is an absolute must in order to restore health.