4 Key Signs of Inflammation

You may be wondering, do I have inflammation? So I’m going to share with you all an easy way to know and remember the signs of inflammation and how you can check for them.

There are four cardinal signs of inflammation. These four signs are found in an easy mnemonic, using their Latin names, because medicine was and still is often written in Latin. These four signs are:

Calor, Dolor, Rubor and Tumor.

Let’s go through them.

1. Calor – this refers to a feeling of heat. It is also similar to the French word chaleur, which also means heat. If you have a right wrist that isn’t healing well, feel the right wrist temperature, and then compare that with the left wrist temperature. Better yet, have someone else test both wrists for you. An elevated temperature of the area is a key sign of inflammation.
   
   
2. Dolor – this refers to pain. It is also similar to the French word douleur, which also means pain. Pain is often the first signal that something is wrong and the signal we tend to act on quickly. Pain and inflammation are linked because inflammation creates pain. Pain’s function is to put us into fast action to care for the injury. If pain has gone on longer than six weeks, you’re now dealing with chronic pain. In a chronic pain case, acupuncture points that help the body turn off continuous pain signaling by the nervous system will also be used.
3. Rubor – refers to colour, the reddish colour that happens during an inflammatory process when blood has rushed to an area to feed the injured tissues, providing key nutrients to the area as the building blocks of the repair process. Blood flow to the area is part of the acute healing process. However, acute inflammation should not become chronic, meaning more than six weeks. If you’re still having signs of inflammation past six weeks, what you want to do is get in for acupuncture treatment to decrease inflammation in general, as well as decrease inflammation to the injured area. The acupuncture treatment goal will be to increase micro-circulation to the injured areas and the affected channels, so that the repair work can complete and the inflammatory process can be put to rest.
4. Tumor – refers to swelling. Swelling occurs when fluid and immune cells accumulate in an injured area as part of the body’s natural healing response. If you’ve ever sprained an ankle and watched it swell up over the next few hours, you’ve seen inflammation at work. Some swelling is normal and helpful during the early stages of healing, but persistent swelling can slow recovery and interfere with proper tissue repair. Acupuncture can help regulate the inflammatory response, improve circulation, and support the body’s ability to clear excess fluid from the affected area. If swelling has been present for several weeks and isn’t improving, it may be a sign that the healing process has stalled and requires additional support.

Are you noticing any of these four signs? If you have even one or two of these signs, it’s very likely that inflammation is part of the picture. Call Kingsville Acupuncture at 519-800-4903 and let’s get you out of inflammation and allow your injury to complete the repair process.

Yours in health,

Cynthia McGilvray, R.Ac.