Dublin based
Acupuncture & Shiatsu
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Inflammation and Pain; Acupuncture or Cortisone?

October 31st, 2010 | Posted in 2 Pain, Injuries, Sports, 3 Various Specific Problems

INFLAMMATION AND PAIN:  CORTISONE or ACUPUNCTURE

 

Although we think of inflammation as something bad and something to be suppressed, it, in fact, is an essential function mediated by the immune system.

Inflammation is designed by the body for 3 main purposes; detoxification, repair and protection.

• Primary inflammation, is a pathway that is involved with detoxification and repair. Whenever there is a particular problem in our body that involves either a functional or metabolic stress, there will always be an increased rate of cellular respiration in the area. In other words, the cells of the area under stress will speed up their rate of metabolism. This causes the area to create more toxic by-products of metabolism than would usually be found in the area under normal circumstances. These are toxins that must be neutralized and eliminated by the body to prevent cellular damage in the area.
• The primary pathway of inflammation will address the build-up of toxins. Once the area is detoxified, the repair of all injured tissues in the area takes place. When it is efficient, we will not be aware of any symptoms of pain, swelling, redness or heat in the area. In other words, we don’t feel this pathway at work. This pathway is utilized either in the early stages of a problem, or ongoing when it remains efficient and effective at managing the stress in the area.

There are various reasons why the primary pathway of inflammation may prove inefficient.

• The first is a compromised immune system, which is unable to drive the necessary detoxification and repair pathway.
• The second reason is that the level of functional or metabolic stress in the area is beyond the capabilities of the primary pathway. When this happens, there will be an added level of toxification of the tissues (areas under this type of stress serve as free-radical magnets, free radicals being electrically unstable compounds that are responsible for attacking and damaging our cells). A higher degree of tissue damage may then ensue.

Secondary inflammation, or chronic inflammation, is the pathway of protection that takes over when the primary pathway fails to manage the problem. Cells of the area are protected from rapid destruction by this pathway and it also works to allow the tissues to adapt and compensate for the ongoing problem. Although this is a degenerative pathway, secondary inflammation prevents the tissue assault from spiralling out of control.

Acupuncture works to stimulate the primary pathway of inflammation—detoxification and repair ─ rather than suppressing the pathways of inflammation.

The primary pathway of inflammation is ultimately responsible for any and all healing. We do not have to suppress the secondary pathway when we are able to support the primary pathway and make it more efficient. When this is done, the body will naturally release the second pathway while concentrating on healing rather than protecting.

Glucocorticoid and adrenalineare, the main hormones released by the body as a reaction to stress,  are   manufactured naturally by the body’s adrenal glands and have a marked anti-inflammatory effect.

These hormones can also be made synthetically. Cortisone and its derivatives are steroids, among the most potent anti-inflammatory drugs known. Their use can substantially reduce the swelling, warmth, tenderness and pain that are associated with inflammation. A cortisone injection can also be used to give short-term pain relief and reduce the swelling from inflammation of a joint, tendon, or bursa in, for example, the joints of the knee, elbow, and shoulder.  Cortisone may also be used to deliberately suppress immune response in persons with autoimmune diseases or following an organ transplant to prevent transplant rejection, and some allergies.

Since injections of cortisone are so frequently used for inflammation and pain, it is important to arm yourself with certain facts about the drug and how it affects the human body. Cortisone has as its major application in medicine, the ability to suppress inflammation. It does so by blocking the ability of the immune system to address the problem.

This might seem good on the surface because inflammation produces pain and cortisone has the ability to suppress the pain-causing inflammation.

It is, in fact, suppressing the body’s ability to detoxify, repair and protect. Empirically then, we see that this approach leaves the body wide open for other problems when these pathways are crippled. And, it is well known in medicine, that areas that have been repeatedly injected with cortisone suffer from accelerated damage over time.

The second thing we must be aware of is that any time a drug is used as a blocking agent (e.g. a blocker of inflammation), we know we will encounter side-effects. In other words, if we put up a roadblock to a natural bodily function, then the body will undergo a physiologic compensation in an attempt to “go around” the roadblock. Some of the unwanted effects of cortisone also put the body in danger of further injury and add a level of chronicity to the situation.

 

Note:  While steroid dosage should be kept at the lowest effective level, steroids must not be stopped suddenly if they have been taken for more than four weeks. By this time, some shrinkage of the adrenal glands will have occurred, as their task of producing cortisone has been lessened. If illness or injury follows, the glands may not be able to produce enough cortisone to keep one from going into shock. A slow reduction in the dosage of steroids allows the adrenal glands to regain their ability to manufacture natural cortisone.