How does the inflammation process in our bodies work? What are the steps and why does this happen?
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Inflammation is the first response of the immune system to any injury/infection and is the first pathologic process (meaning – related to disease progression). So from a small injury to fever to appendicitis, all go through inflammation first.
Now there are chemical compounds called pathogens (molecules that cause disease) Usually the process goes like this : bacteria/virus/microorganisms enter our body, body/immune system detects certain proteins and chemical structures on them (like the cell wall,etc), sends a signal to the brain, brain is like oops need to kill that, need more ammo, so they release some other substances/chemical compounds which further activates the immune system.
Now there are basically 2 overall changes that happen during inflammation but very broadly and generally-
1) blood/blood vessel related changes (vascular)-
which means the blood vessels broaden —- more blood reaches that area —— more warmth in that area
and blood becomes more thick and slows down (stasis)
2) cell (which are present in the blood) – related changes –
blood vessels can have various gaps through which cells and other stuff can pass if need be, during inflammation these gaps become active and increase in number (called increased permeability) which results in loss of fluid (plasma) from the vessel into the tissue resulting in swelling.
due to this and stasis(from above), the white blood cells (immune system cells that fight the causative agent) leak out of the blood vessel and reach the site of injury via following a trail of certain chemicals (chemotaxis) and attack the problematic things
This is a VERY broad and generalised explanation and every step has further sub steps involved includinh the actual process of ‘fighting’ but it’s ELI5 so I’ll stop here for now.
Hope this helps. Feel free to ask any questions 🙂
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