Inflammatory Mediators 👉 What Happens During Inflammation? 👉 (NEW Nursing Fundamentals Series)

In this video, we are walking through the inflammatory mediators or the chemicals that are involved in the inflammatory process. This is a big topic you'll have to know about for your nursing fundamentals class and then also it'll pop back up as you go through nursing school. So we're going to walk through it in this video here. This is actually a tutor call that I did inside our nursing SOS membership community, but I thought it would be helpful here to post on YouTube. So I hope you love it because be sure to subscribe and click that notification bell and let's dive in. All right, so I got a fantastic question for our live tutor call inside the nursing SOS membership community all about inflammation and what chemicals are involved during the inflammatory process? What happens during inflammation? So I thought this was a fantastic question that a lot of students have, especially if you're in Nursing Fundamentals. So I wanted to create a whole kind of flow for you here and walk through the chemicals that are involved in this inflammatory process. These are the main ones that you're going to want to know for your nursing school exams. So the first thing that happens during this process is the immune cells, things like mast cells or basophils, the macrophages, those really, those immune cells in the body, they're going to really release what we call inflammatory mediators. Now those are just things that are going to go and cause changes in the body tissues, in the blood, vess the blood to increase inflammation and help ultimately try to help the body to heal. So that's what these inflammatory mediators are doing now. We're going to walk through them. But when you hear the term inflammatory mediators, don't worry about it. It's kind of a big phrase or a big word, but it really, that's what it means is that these little kind of chemically type things are going to go into the body tissues and really just cause those changes to happen that are going to help the body to heal. So one of these inflammatory mediators is called histamine. Now you might have heard of histamine already. Now histamine is triggered by things like mast cells and basophils. Those cells release histamine when there is a tissue injury or when there's an allergic reaction happening. That's and histamine is going to go into the tissues. It's going to cause the vasodilation in the blood vessels and it's going to make the blood vessels become what we call leaky, so called capillary leak. It's going to make those blood vessels leaky, which means that fluids going to be kind of moving out of the blood vessel just a little bit into the surrounding tissues. So those blood vessels are going to dilate, they're going to get larger, and they're the, what we call the. The cell walls of those blood vessels are going to be more permeable. So it's going to cause capillary leak, where the kind of fluid from the blood vessel is going to move out into the tissues. Now this is going to help increase blood flow to that area. Now, same thing with bradykinin and leukotrienes and cytokines. Also those inflammatory mediators, those chemical mediators are going to cause vasodilation. So really, the ultimate goal here for these is to get more blood flow and more of those white blood cells and all the good nutrients and stuff to. To that area of the body that is. Has that injury. It's going to lead to inflammation, to increase blood flow and to help that area heal, help all that tissue to heal. Now another thing that will happen is prostaglandins. Prostaglandins come in, those cause more capillary leaks. So more fluid is going out into the tissues to help get all those good white blood cells and all those, you know, yummy nutrients and everything to help heal that tissue that's damaged. You're going to get more white blood cells there, more even, like antibodies and stuff. If there's any bacteria or anything in there, they're all going to attack that area and try to fight off whatever pathogens are there or what, whatever's going on, whether it's a tissue injury or a possible infection. And now this leads to switch swelling, this leads to heat, this leads to redness and pain in those in. In that area or in those areas that are inflamed because all that blood flow is going there to that area. It leads to swelling because there's increased blood flow. And blood really itself is warm, right? Blood keeps your body warm, so it's going to cause more heat in that area, more redness and also pain in that area. There are other chemicals that can cause an increase in pain in that area. Kind of tells your brain, hey, there's something going on here that you need to be aware of, right? You need to know that this area of your body is hurt so that you can try to help it in other ways as well. So that's why pain is going to be caused there. You've got that increase in blood flow, and then there's Some chemicals there that's also going to cause pain to tell your brain, hey, I'm hurt and I need help. Now, a big critical thinking point that I really want to walk through here is that with more blood going to that area, the place that's injured, it's going to cause swelling, heat, redness and pain. It's because that blood flow is going to that area. So anytime we're looking at something like nursing fundamentals or a topic like this, or any med surgical disorder or something, you want to be thinking in the back of your mind like, hey, why is this happening? And so these things, swelling, heat, redness and pain is happening with this inflammation because of that extra blood flow going to that area. So when you are taking your nursing school exams, you don't want to just memorize a list of these are the things that are going to happen when the body is inflamed or there's an area in the tissues that's, that has some inflammation. You don't want to just memorize that list of swelling, heat, redness and pain. You want to actually be thinking about and critically thinking through, hey, why is this actually happening? And it's happening here because of that increased blood flow. You've got all of those chemical mediators there, inflammatory mediators going to the area where releasing all of their ooey juicy chemicals that are helping to do all these things. So that is the point there. Now another thing that I didn't write down here, but that is super important for you to know, is that there is a big difference between inflammation and an infection. So inflammation is this process here where there might be an injury to the tissues or there might be a, there might be an infection. Like there's a bacteria or a fungi or a pathogen or a virus or whatever that is that the body is trying to fight off. So those white blood cells will go to the area and try to fight off whatever pathogen is in there. So that would be an actual infection. But inflammation can happen during an infection where there is a pathogen. But it can also happen when there's just tissue injury. So say you have a burn or a cut on your finger, like you get a paper cut or something. Like we all know that paper cuts are a real bummer, right? They're so small, but they still cause, they can cause a lot of pain, redness and swelling just in that area. Just because your tissue like that, your, your skin is actually sliced through by a piece of paper. It's crazy. So that is what happens. Inflammation can happen whether it's a tissue injury where there's no pathogen there so it's not an infection or inflammation can also happen with an infection. So this is the process for inflammation specifically. But if there is an infection then that's a whole other level where there's more white blood cells and all that stuff to go and attack that pathogen. So I hope this walkthrough was helpful for you to kind of break down the these inflammatory mediators and the cells that are involved with inflammation when inflammation happens in the body. Now if you need help with passing your nursing fundamentals exams be sure to check out this video here where I walk you through my top study tips to help you pass. And if you like this video hit that like button and write love in the comments below because that is what we do here on my channel. And as always my friend, go become the nurse that God created only you to be and I'll see you over there in that next video.