What Students Need To Know About Inflammation.

The process of inflammation is designed to be helpful to the body in repairing injury. It should be an acute (or very fast) response whereby the immune cells quickly remove damaged tissue and destroy any invading micro-organisms. Inflammation is a process by which your body’s white blood cells and the things they make protect you from infection from outside invaders, such as bacteria and viruses. But in some diseases, like arthritis, your body’s defense system -- your immune system -- triggers inflammation when there are no invaders to fight off. In these autoimmune diseases, your immune system acts as if regular tissues are infected or somehow unusual, causing damage. Normal tissue structure is restored and the immune signals that amplify the inflammatory response are switched off. The immune cells retreat back into the bloodstream. Order is restored. This type of inflammation occurs with normal processes of healing for example after a slight cut or wound. Your doctor will ask about your