Healing and acute inflammation are part of the same cycle

The healing process and the acute inflammation are phenomena depending on each other. When acute inflammation processes are suppressed healing is impaired too. Taking antiinflammatory agents for a longer period of time can therefore lead to really dangerous side-effects, in my view totally underestimated and trivialized. Tiny lesions happen in our bodies all the time. They need healing and for that they need the acute inflammation.

Please, don't run into the error of mixing it up with the chronic inflammatory processes. They are deleterious.

ACUTE INFLAMMATION IS A BURNING ILLNESS

When envisioning the acute inflammation, think of a burn, sunburn, a frostbite or an injury like a cut, an acute infections.... The title is meant literally indeed, the acute always feels hot!

At the beginning of this chapter for you to be aware of that these acute processes are self-limiting. An organism, fit and well, has as usually no problem to deal with acute events. Only massive traumas that need intensive care are a different story. Events of this kind jeopardize the balance of the organism and can lead to the so-called hyperinflammtory syndrome.

I'll talk about this later.

The healing process is an absolute priority in terms of energy provision within the body.

An acute inflammation is like a darting flame, hot, intensive, harmful but short-lived. It ususall affects only particular bodyparts, be it an injury or infection, you feel the heat in contrast to the chronic inflammation. The healing process to take place accordingly need extra energy. This is why our performance drops in the case of an acute illness. The metabolism switches its mode of action. The energy produced has to be distributed with the priority serving the healing process. This change in the distribution pattern is in the hands of the stress system (nervous system, immune system, hormones), the regulatory system of our body.

The processes of inflammation and healing occur in a strictly coordinated and temporary way, issues of regulation endanger the healing. Once the healing process is complete, the heat also subsides.

The acute imflammation can be compared with a fire we stop feeding. We stop to put more wood on the embers. At some point, the fire will go out by itself. And so it is with any acute inflammation. This flame does not spread to become a large-scale wildfire, nor generate excessive heat that could damage the body as a whole. Nor does it become a cold, inefficient fire that years later can lead to a chronic illness. The balance of the body is preserved and wellbeing restored.

Back in the first century AD, this kind of inflammation was defined by Celsus as an entity with five key markers: rubor (redness), calor (overheating), tumor (swelling), dolor (pain) and functio laesa (loss of function).

Acute inflammation is locally restricted.
The end point is healing.
Once healing occurs, the problem is solved and the process is completed.
We feel well again.

Every biological classification, however, has its limits and so it is with the definition of inflammation. Between the extreme forms of acute and chronic inflammation, there are the transition states of blurriness.

Infections, for instance, are acute inflammations, frequently present as illnesses with the whole body feeling of sickness. The body temperature is raised. We run a fever and suffer from headaches, fatigue, flushs, loss of appetite, aching limbs, back pain and insomnia.

The specific symptomes you experience depend on the trigger initiating the illness, be it a virus, a bacteria or none of the both. All of the above phenomena are generated by the signalling molecules first of all secreted by the immune system (interleukins). Of course, to apply all the issues to the immune system falls short and is oversimplified. The circulatory system, the nervous system, the metabolic system, the hormones, all of them are involved and influence in the final outcome of an illness. Therefore chronic diseases that are already present, when you contract an infection play an important role in the course of the illness.

But let's keep it simple and stay with one of the major players for now, the immune system.

The acute inflammatory process described is the prerequisite for survival for every living being. Since we have antibiotics, we have left little room for development of these inflammations. Only then, when the antibiotics do not work, we experience how threatening an acute inflammation can be. It can spread to the entire organism and is often life-threatening. It can also turn into a chronic process.

Therefore: In acute inflammation, the organism needs a lot of rest and we need patience. It can take a week to 10 days before we feel completely fit again.

INFORMATION SHEET FOR ACUTE INFLAMMATION

An acute inflammation ends with healing.

The inflammation initiates healing.

The arey an inseparable couple.

The healing process is a finely tuned communication process between numerous cells and molecules.

The main players are the immune system, the autonomic nervous system, the hormones, the vascular system and the connective tissue.

If you are acutely ill for the best of your well-being, then the healing process takes about five to 10 days.

Acute diseases are acute inflammations that are primarily caused by viruses.

• Antibiotics are ineffective in the case of viruses

• Antibiotics do not heal, they kill the bacteria

• Antibiotics need intact immunity to be effective

We control the acute inflammations quite well with the methods of "modern" medicine. Unfortunately, we are quite helpless in the face of chronic inflammation. Unforunately, preventing them is not an integral part of our medicine. In my opinion, check-ups do not fulfill the purpose of prevention. If preventive medicine is detecting the illness, then chronic inflammation is already at the transition to a chronic disease.