- Dr. Wikenheiser redefines inflammation not as a disease, but as a productive response to infection, trauma, or stress. He explains that the suffix “-itis” simply indicates inflammation occurring in a specific tissue or organ, characterized by pain, redness, heat, and swelling.
- Cytokines Drive Immune Activation and Tissue Regeneration
Inflammation is mediated by cytokines—growth factors released during injury or stress. These molecules orchestrate: - Supporting Natural Healing vs. Suppressing Symptoms
Mainstream medicine often uses anti-inflammatories (prednisone, cortisone) to reduce symptoms, which can prevent complete healing. Naturopathic approaches focus on guiding the inflammatory process to its natural conclusion, using:
Full Transcript
Introduction to Pain and Healing 0:00
If you shut down the concept of pain, redness, heat and swelling, the patient will notice that they no longer have pain and they often misinterpret this as being a completion of healing. If it isn't, if it's just shut down of the perception of pain, then they are at high risk of first off not having complete healing, second off of going back to their lifestyle that caused the pain, redness, heat and swelling, then they may re-injure or further injure and exacerbate a physical problem. Welcome to the Natural Facts Podcast.
I'm your host, Dr. David Wickenheiser. I'm a naturopathic physician with over 30 years of clinical experience. I have a focus on natural and regenerative medicine. Through this podcast, I will be your guide, helping you to make sense of conflicting healthcare choices.
What Inflammation Really Is 0:44
Welcome to The Natural Facts. Hello, I'm Dr. David Wickenheiser, naturopathic physician and the host of the Natural Facts podcast. In this episode, I want to address and discuss a core concept of medicine, and that's inflammation. So what is inflammation? Well, it's a symptom pattern of pain, redness, heat, and swelling, but it's much more than just the symptoms. The symptoms are the result of your attempt to heal. So let's talk a little bit more about that concept of pain, redness, heat, and swelling as a collective group of symptoms.
It's known as ITIS, I-T-I-S, which is added to the end of various words that describe parts of our body. would be pain, redness, heat and swelling in the lungs. Carditis, pain, redness, heat and swelling, any or all of that in the heart. Muscles are myo in Latin terms. So myositis is pain, redness, heat and swelling, any or all of that in your muscles. So it's throughout the body you have the risk of having itis.
Cytokines and the Healing Response 2:04
But what is it? Now, have you heard of the term, the name of cytokine? Cytokine is cyto for cell, kind for growth factor. There are certain chemicals of healing that are released from cells that are either infected or traumatized, so physical trauma, actually even emotional trauma, but either infection or trauma will cause the release of those healing chemicals. They will naturally go through a series of conversions where they turn on in the end actually the immune response of the body to attack and take out an invader or to turn on the blast cells that will lay down tissue to heal a damaged part of your body.
If it's a ligament or tendon, the fibrous parts of the body that's injured, those will be fibroblasts. You want to turn them on and get them to be effective in laying down tissue and hopefully that's not scar tissue. But that's another discussion. So what is inflation not? It's been discussed and I don't agree with the discussion. It's not what I've been trained. It's not what I believe. It's not what I see in practice. It's been discussed as a disease or problem of its own. This is simply not true.
It's an essential part of healing. Pain, redness, heat and swelling is telling us that the cytokines are in play and that the various conversion steps, if they get hung up, you'll get a backlog and that is misinterpreted as the inflammation is the problem.
Why Suppressing Inflammation Can Be Risky 3:34
Of course it isn't. its efficiency of the inflammation. So when inflammation is effective, when it's efficient, when we support it to be efficient and effective, then you'll have complete healing, the system will shut down. Now if it doesn't result in good healing, then that feedback mechanism of producing the cytokines and having them attempt to heal you, but if they're hung up, you'll just get more pain, redness, heat and swelling. So what happens in mainstream medicine is that recognizing that this is a problem, various practitioners, medical doctors included, will prescribe anti-inflammatories.
Now if you have some powerful anti-inflammatories like prednisone or cortisol, cortisol treatments are the synthetic, cortisol is your natural response by your adrenal glands to trauma. If you shut down the concept of pain, redness, heat and swelling, the patient will notice that they no longer have pain and they often misinterpret this as being a completion of healing. If it isn't, if it's just shut down of the perception of pain, then they are at high risk of first off not having complete healing, second off of going back to their lifestyle that caused the pain, redness, heat and swelling, and they may re-injure or further injure and exacerbate a physical problem.
Big problem to have that happen. So our goal as naturopathic physicians is to support inflammation. to make sure that it's efficient. Make sure it works through to its logical conclusion, which is full healing in an efficient, timely manner.
Supporting Efficient Inflammation 5:14
So this is very important that we support inflammation. Don't allow it to get out of control. You don't want it to be over reactive because that can cause problems. There are various cytokine chemicals. You may have heard of some like interleukin and interferon and many others. As naturopathic doctors, I use supportive nutritional and herbal medicines, but I also use energetic medicines like ozone therapy. Ozone is energized oxygen, medical grade oxygen. And when I inject this energized oxygen, natural part of our body, we have oxygen throughout our bodies when we're healthy, we put in energized oxygen as ozone therapy, whether it's applied topically, whether it's applied in different forms or injected, it will optimize the balance of cytokines.
Some that are pro-inflammatory, some that are anti-inflammatory, but the optimum balance will result in the efficient and effective regeneration of tissue within the human body. It will result in effective and efficient reduction of infections throughout the body. So recognizing what inflammation truly is, it's not a problem of its own.
Closing Remarks and Podcast Outro 6:34
Now, of course, if you have a limited view of the body, a limited view of your therapeutics, yes, you could think that, but that's not really true. What is true is that it is a natural response to the human body. that is essential for healing, that we can and do support. So to know more about how inflammation is a productive part of our body's maintenance, regaining and maintaining our good health, go to my website thethenaturalfacts.com and you can get more information there on how inflammation is actually a natural and productive part of our body's health.
I'm Dr. David Wickenheiser, naturopathic physician, to your good health. I hope you enjoyed this episode of the Natural Facts Podcast. To get access to my future episodes as soon as they're available, subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. For all of my podcasts, as well as detailed discussions and reports on healthcare issues that matter to you, go to www.thenaturalfacts.com. This is Dr. David Weckenheiser, naturopathic physician, guiding you to better health with The Natural Facts.
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