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How to Fight Chronic Inflammation in Dogs
Your dog undergoes inflammation now and then. It is a natural response to injuries and diseases. It helps your dog recover from minor injuries and illnesses independently.
However, when its natural healing response becomes unnecessarily repetitive (due to a trigger or two), things can become ugly. Your dog may lose its health instead of regaining it.
In this post, that’s the phenomenon we’re going to explore. Let’s head straight to it.
Understanding Healthy Inflammation
Healthy Inflammation is an antagonistic process of vasoconstriction and vasodilation at the site of damage that helps your dog’s body achieve any of the three:
- Repair wounds
- Kill germs and consequent infections
- Cleanse leftover damaged tissue & toxins
First, your dog’s body detects the site of damage. This site of damage can be internal or external. If it’s internal, it means an infection or disease brewing in a specific tissue or muscle. It can further spread. If it’s external, it means your dog has met an accident, and the injury is visible on the outside. You may see a cut or a wound. Or, it may be covered in its fur.
Once the site is detected, the body launches the first phase of the inflammatory response. During this response, blood flow is restricted to the site of damage by vasoconstriction to minimize blood loss.
It is immediately followed by the second phase, in which there’s vasodilation, meaning the blood supply is increased to the site of damage. A sudden rush of blood causes some of its contents (mainly white blood cells) to leak into the affected tissues.
The white blood cells engulf the alien bodies that are troubling your dog. These alien bodies can be bacteria, viruses, or any other damaging foreign elements that’s entered your dog’s body. Once they’ve destroyed the foreign body, the white blood cells clean up toxins and dead or damaged tissue from the site of damage.
During this time, your dog may undergo reddening, pain, and swelling at the affected site. But soon enough, it heals and gets back to normal.
How to detect inflammation in your dog?
Speaking of inflammation, you ought to be able to detect when your dog undergoes this painful process. Here are some general indicators:
- Inflammation in the leg: Dogs tend to limp.
- Inflammation in the back: Dogs cannot stand up.
- Inflammation in the digestive tract: Dogs refuse to eat and often vomit. Diarrhea is also a common symptom.
- Inflammation in ears: Dogs may have a foul odor in their ears.
Other generic symptoms of inflammation all over the body may include rash, pain, unreasonable loss of appetite, restlessness, etc.
What is chronic inflammation?
Now, a few triggers can push your dog’s body into an endless loop of inflammatory responses. And this is what we call chronic inflammation. When your dog’s body is pushed into one inflammatory response after another, it doesn’t get the time to recover fully, and your dog is in constant pain.
The immune system constantly remains active, and it can have the following effects on your dog’s body:
- Tissue Damage
- Organ Damage
- Redness, swelling, and patches of rash
- Restlessness
- Pain
They can even trigger newer diseases in your dog’s body instead of healing it. Chronic Inflammation can cause diabetes, kidney failure, arthritis, cardiac diseases, etc.
Causes of chronic inflammation
Here are a few aspects that trigger chronic inflammation:
- Vaccination when the dog is weak
- Diseases such as Lyme
- Pest Prevention
- Pharmaceutical Drugs
- Lack of exposure to natural sunlight
- Pesticides and herbicides
- Excessive stress and anxiety
- Excessive consumption of processed foods
- Electromagnetic Radiation
How to fight chronic inflammation?
You know what is chronic inflammation; you’re aware of the symptoms and causes of Chronic Inflammation in dogs, but how do you address it? How to fight chronic inflammation in dogs?
Well, depending on your dog’s case, it can be as simple as providing your dog with any form of CBD for dogs. You can give CBD gummies or chewies, depending on what you prefer. It organically reduces pain and helps thoroughly with inflammatory responses such as that or arthritis. CBD products for dogs can help heal in less than four weeks. Plus, some CBD products can even be applied topically.
However, you might need to consult a vet if your dog is undergoing severe chronic inflammation. They’ll suggest some anti-inflammatories as well as diet and lifestyle changes. If you replace processed foods with organic foods (rich in antioxidants) like leafy greens and blueberries, it’ll help your dog a great deal. Similarly, fasting and bone broth can help your dog too.
In fatal cases, surgeries such as that fecal transplants are recommended.
Final Words
Although inflammation is a natural healing process in your dog’s body, it can take threatening turns. Therefore, we urge dog parents to keep a close eye on their dog’s behavior and be wary of inflammatory-related issues. Most dogs will suppress the pain until they can’t do it anymore. And so, we recommend taking even the slightest of symptoms seriously. You never know when chronic inflammation becomes fatal. So, be careful!
