When you experience an injury, illness, or infection, your body sets in motion a series of events to recover. This process is known as inflammation, and in short-term, acute instances, it’s an important part of your body’s defense system, working to heal injuries and fight off infection.
Unfortunately, inflammation is a prime example of what happens when you have too much of a good thing. When this process happens for too long, it can cause autoimmune diseases, weight gain or loss, joint pain, neuropathy, and type 2 diabetes.
At Family & Sport Chiropractic, we offer ongoing chronic inflammation treatments to help relieve symptoms and prevent the development of inflammatory and autoimmune diseases.
But we don’t just stop there! We also teach you how to reduce inflammation in the body, giving you the tools and resources to improve your health outside of our office.
Before we address how we reduce inflammation in the body, let’s first explain exactly how inflammation can harm us.
What Is Inflammation?
Inflammation is your immune system’s process of protecting your body from germs, toxins, viruses, and other threats. When it senses danger from injury, illness, or infection, it sends out cytokines (proteins that signal immune cells to fight invaders), which prompts inflammatory cells to eliminate these threats and stimulate cell growth and tissue repair.
Acute Inflammation
Everyone has experienced acute inflammation as their body quickly responds to an injury or illness. Symptoms often present in the form of fever, swelling, pain, and discolored or flushed skin. At the time, these symptoms seemed scary, but when it happens again in the future, you can rest assured that your body is just taking action against harmful threats. Acute inflammation resolves within a few hours to days, and then you’re back to normal.
Chronic Inflammation
Chronic inflammation happens when cytokines continue to signal defensive, inflammatory cells, even when there is no danger present. Chronic inflammation lasts for months or even years. Patients come to us asking how to reduce inflammation in the body when they experience a range of symptoms, including, but not limited to, the following:
- Persistent fatigue
- Stomach pain
- Fever
- Joint pain
- Mood disorders like depression or anxiety
- Gastrointestinal issues like diarrhea or constipation
The signs of chronic inflammation can be difficult to spot, especially because they can progress slowly. But if left untreated, these symptoms can damage cells, tissues, organs, and even your DNA, potentially leading to the development of serious life-threatening diseases.
What Causes Chronic Inflammation?
To learn how to reduce inflammation, it’s helpful to understand what causes it. However, determining that cause isn’t always straightforward, as chronic inflammation has various origins.
Diet
Certain foods can trigger the release of cytokines, contributing to chronic inflammation. These include processed and fried foods, refined carbohydrates like white bread and high-sugar snacks, and trans fats.
Chronic Stress
Inflammation is your body’s natural threat response, even when that threat isn’t from bacteria or a virus. Emotional stressors can trigger an immune system response that sends cytokines to attack the invader, even if there isn’t a physical presence in your body.
Obesity
When learning how to reduce inflammation in the body, you may hear about the correlation between obesity and inflammation, along with the related benefits of weight loss. But why is this? It has to do with the accumulation of adipose tissue, otherwise known as body fat.
Excess fat cells can grow and expand until they reach a limit that causes cellular death and triggers an inflammatory response. Along with that, the extra fat strains bones and joints, creating additional pressure that can worsen pain and damage. That pain may further limit mobility, often creating a vicious cycle.
Other Causes of Chronic Inflammation
As you can see, the best solution for reducing inflammation is staying healthy, mentally and physically. At Family & Sport Chiropractic, we know this is often a challenge, which is why we offer our help. In addition to diet, stress, and obesity, we will also rule out other causes of chronic inflammation, some of which include:
- Lack of physical activity
- Smoking
- Alcohol
- Disrupted sleep
- Imbalanced gut microbiome
- Exposure to toxins
How to Reduce Inflammation in the Body
From in-office anti-inflammatory treatments to at-home guidance, we offer ongoing support to help relieve symptoms of inflammation and improve your overall health.
Nutritional Guidance
Just like how your diet can trigger inflammation, it can also reduce inflammation. When following an anti-inflammatory diet, you can minimize the risk of having chronic inflammation progress and cause life-threatening diseases.
Making a diet change is never easy. But fortunately, you don’t have to do it alone! We emphasize replacements rather than restrictions and teach you the nutritional value of opting for whole foods rather than processed foods. This guidance is personalized to your lifestyle, because we understand that not everyone has the time to cook breakfast, lunch, and dinner every day.
IV Therapy
Your body relies on vitamins and minerals to support your immune system and keep it functioning properly. Unfortunately, it’s not always easy to get an adequate amount of these micronutrients from diet alone, especially because certain vitamins, like B6 and C, are water soluble, meaning your body cannot store them. We offer IV therapy to deliver these vitamins and minerals directly to your bloodstream, bypassing the digestive system where they lose potency.
→ IV therapy boasts more benefits than just reduced inflammation. Read more here!
Chiropractic Care
Our chiropractic services are a great solution and answer for how to reduce inflammation in the body. Our services include alignments for your spine, neck, knees, and other joints to reduce nerve pressure, improve physical function, and slow the production of cytokines.
Cold Laser Therapy
Cold laser therapy is an FDA-approved treatment for pain management. Also known as “low-level laser therapy,” it uses visible light radiation to reduce pain and inflammation, regenerate cells, and increase blood flow in the treatment area. This treatment is also an excellent option for patients struggling with rheumatoid arthritis, a condition that causes inflammation in the joints, as it stimulates tissue repair.
Red Light Therapy
Red light therapy uses specific wavelengths of light to stimulate cellular function within your body. This broad-spectrum light reaches deep into your cells, increasing energy and promoting healing. Not only does this treatment reduce inflammation, it also aids in weight loss because it helps your body function optimally, increasing your metabolism (your body’s process of breaking down food and using or storing it for energy).
Medical Weight Loss
You may wonder why a chiropractic clinic offers medical weight loss. The answer is simple: it’s a solution and answer for how to reduce inflammation in the body. As we mentioned before, excess weight strains your joints, contributing to inflammation and pain. We offer a physician-guided weight loss program, including GLP-1 weight loss injectables as well as a gut health kit and nutritional guidance. This helps you lose weight sustainably and develop healthy lifestyle habits to maintain your results.
Ozone Therapy
Ozone therapy is a type of regenerative medicine that uses medical-grade ozone to boost your body’s oxygen levels. This therapy has anti-inflammatory capabilities because it can increase blood circulation and improve your immune system’s function. This treatment also improves how your body uses nutrients, making it a great addition to your IV therapy.
Infrared Sauna
Our infrared sauna is not your typical sauna experience. Instead of heating the surrounding air to improve circulation and promote relaxation, our mPulse Conquer sauna directly heats your body, penetrating deeper tissues to aid in detoxification and enhance your immune system. Should stress or lack of sleep cause your inflammation, this treatment may help with your daily stressors, helping you get better sleep and feel more well-rested.
Why Come to Family & Sport Chiropractic
At Family & Sport Chiropractic, we don’t just teach you how to reduce inflammation in the body; we teach you how to improve your overall health. We share a roof with Iowa Wellness Center to provide you with a range of treatments and resources, helping you live life to the fullest. Here is what you can expect when you visit our team.
Comprehensive Consultations
We take our time to pinpoint the cause or causes of your inflammation. Not only do we review your medical history and discuss your lifestyle habits, but we also perform other services as well, taking into consideration that inflammation can stem from issues related to physical and mental health. We may use brain mapping to measure your brainwaves if you mention stress, anxiety, or sleep problems, to check for over or underactivity in brain areas and develop a personalized treatment.
Tailored Treatment Plans
Based on the underlying cause of your inflammation, we create a tailored treatment plan to help relieve your symptoms. This may include combining our services for optimal results and taking a full-body approach to your care.
Flexible Financing
We understand that our services are only as accessible as they are affordable, which is why we offer flexible financing options through CareCredit and Synchrony. These allow you to pay in affordable monthly installments so you can get the comprehensive and ongoing care that you deserve.
Call Us to Reduce Inflammation in the Body
If you’re wondering how to reduce inflammation in the body, near Iowa City, it all starts with a phone call. One simple conversation can lead to an overall improved quality of life as you learn how to optimize your health, manage stress, and prevent chronic diseases. We’ve even made it easier by offering you an online treatment planning tool. This allows you to streamline the process from the comfort of your own home.
Alternatively, you can request an appointment and start the process in our office with one of our expert team members.
