To some extent, we need inflammation in the body. (For example, an acute response to stop the bleeding if you cut yourself.)
However, when inflammation goes unchecked, and the body keeps mounting an inflammatory response to the same trigger, it leads to chronic inflammation and disease.
Integrative medicine teaches us that we need to look at not only why the body is responding to a trigger but also at what that trigger is.
A concept I discuss in-depth in my book, Healthy Kids, Happy Moms, is the five main triggers of inflammation.
As you can see from the graphic above, it’s the interaction of our genes with these triggers that determines our overall health.
Our bodies don’t have fences, so inflammatory cells can travel anywhere in the body, from the gut to the brain to the skin.
Therefore, poorly controlled asthma is related to constipation and stomach aches. Recurrent ear infections are related to uncontrolled eczema.
This also applies to our nervous system. Have you ever noticed your child’s behavior is worse if he or she has gone three or four days without a bowel movement? Or, at the height of allergy season, does he or she seem more irritable? If a child has tics, I often see them worsen during allergy season.
In short, all these triggers interplay with one another, and one symptom may exacerbate another. It’s all connected!
To illustrate this point, let’s look at Gary’s case study from chapter 2 of my book.
The Symptoms of Inflammation
Gary was four years old when his mother brought him to see me. He had a persistent cough for several months, and throughout the previous two years, he had recurrent bouts of coughing, running nose, and wheezing that required an albuterol inhaler.
He had taken one course of oral steroids for the wheezing that caused his behavior to become erratic, with irritability, mood swings, and sleep troubles.
Fortunately, his mother’s intuition was telling her that his symptoms were being caused by an underlying issue not being addressed.
During his office visit, I observed that he was an audible mouth breather (what I affectionately refer to as “Darth Vader breathing”), he had a runny nose, and dark, puffy circles under his eyes.
On exam, I noticed the inside of his nose (nasal mucosa) was pale in color and swollen, a tell-tale sign of environmental allergies.
The Triggers of Inflammation
We have a saying in medicine, “If you ask the right questions, the patient will tell you what’s wrong.”
Gary was sleeping on a fifteen-year-old mattress from his uncle’s college days. We knew he had a highly significant dust mite allergy due to blood work from his previous pediatrician.
Gary also had signs and symptoms of inflammation classic for someone with a dairy sensitivity.
He had two out of the five inflammatory triggers–environmental allergies (dust mites) and food (dairy).
The Outcome of Resolving Inflammation
Gary improved rapidly, and to this day, he is doing great. At his follow-up appointment three weeks later, Gary’s chronic nasal congestion and cough had almost completely resolved.
Eventually, so did the dark circles under his eyes and the mouth breathing. His need for albuterol also decreased.
He is one of the hundreds of children I have seen over the years who were statistically more likely to progress to asthma. Using the best of both conventional and integrative medicine, we decrease their exposure to the particular triggers of inflammation, and the kids experience an improved trajectory of their health.
If you are noticing an uptick in your child’s symptoms this allergy season, my team and I would love to help your family get to the root cause of inflammation!
