ASK DR. SHIROKO

Anti-inflammatory medications are a mainstay of the
pharmaceutical industry. They were developed in an effort to
suppress inflammation. Millions of people suffer some form of
chronic swelling in their bodies and need ways to cope with pain.
Harmful side effects have become a major problem with these and
other medications.
Inflammation is one of the main causes of problems with aging.
Our body creates natural heat, swelling, pain, and redness to help
it heal from irritations. Four principle causes of chronic
inflammation are: infection, allergy or chemical toxicity, hormonal
imbalance, and injury. Suppressing symptoms may ease pain, but it
doesn’t address the underlying cause.
Infections cause peptic ulcers, Crohn’s disease, irritable bowel
syndrome, heart valve disease, arrhythmias, atherosclerosis,
certain types of cancer, and some forms of arthritis. Bacteria and
viruses can hide in the tissues making them difficult to detect
with normal methods. Blood tests including C-Reactive Protein (CRP)
and others indicate chronic inflammation and guide your physician
to search further for infection.
Patty was diagnosed with Rheumatoid arthritis many years ago,
when she came to see me, she was on methotrexate which is a
powerful chemotherapy drug sometimes used for arthritis. I did some
tests and found she had Lyme disease, which we were able to treat
successfully. She no longer has arthritis.
Allergy and chemical toxicity also lead to chronic inflammation.
Many people eat foods that their bodies don’t tolerate well. Dairy,
sugar, wheat products, and a diet too high in fried or processed
foods can cause irritable bowel or leaky gut syndromes. When
digestion malfunctions for long periods of time, people could
develop other inflammatory conditions such as arthritis.
Eliminating possible allergens from your diet for a period of time
allows symptoms to disappear. If you’re having a lot of joint pain,
try eliminating sugar from your diet for 2 weeks, and see if you
get better.
Chemical sensitivity can lead to inflammation. It is not easy to
measure but levels of specific toxins are measurable. Mercury
poisoning is one such cause of chronic inflammation. Injecting a
chelating agent (a chemical that draws metals out of the tissues),
then collecting urine and measuring the levels of heavy metals
reveals whether the tissues hold dangerous amounts.
Another cause of arthritis is connected to hormonal imbalance.
Mary came to me after being offered antidepressants, sleeping pills
and Vioxx for a diagnosis of fibromyalgia—severe aches in her
shoulders and neck. She had a sedentary job, didn’t exercise much,
and had problems sleeping since the onset of menopause three years
before.  Since the sleep disorder began with menopause, we began by
looking at her hormone levels. We used the results to prescribe
bio-identical hormones to replace the missing elements. She
improved within two months after her body began to balance.
Injuries are another place where we can have problems with
arthritis. Sometimes we were injured doing something at age 16,
which is now, at age 50 causing chronic pain. How did that happen?
Possibly, we’ve re-injured the same joint for years doing various
things but ignoring it. The best treatment for a recurrent injury
is to find the right exercise for healing. Usually, as we get
older, ligaments and joints get more sensitive to the mechanics of
all the muscles involve. With a knee injury for example, there are
seven muscles above the knee involved in movement-3 in the
hamstrings, 4 in the quadriceps. All of them need to be working
together with equal strength in order for your knee to function
smoothly.
With an accurate diagnosis of the root cause of a painful
inflammatory condition, a practitioner can use specific natural
treatments to heal it, not to just temporarily alleviate pain. It’s
not that you’ll never take another anti-inflammatory drug while
healing your body. If you have acute pain, or are in the middle of
figuring out what exactly is going on, you may need to take
medication to stay out of pain. Why suffer with pain if there is an
understanding that may solve the problem?
Dr. Shiroko Sokitch’s column appears monthly. She can be
reached at: dr*****@li***.net.