Originally Posted by mrsD

Some inflammation is chemical. (and does not always involve white blood cells or antibodies).

The chemical messengers released are signalers for other cells to rise up and fight the assaulting event.

These are called cytokines, and they are quite potent. Inflammatory cytokines do many things, healing, and also causing redness or tissue reactions (which may cause pain or discomfort).

I have arthritis and have had elevated ESRs for my whole adult life. But I don't have any other markers for inflammation. I do have a modest elevation just above normal in alkaline phosphatase and that seems related to the joint/bone arthritis.

Inflammatory cytokines are blocked when elevated by 1) increasing omega-3 fatty acids in the diet, 2) controlling insulin spikes by not eating sugar or high glycemic carbs in excess, 3) taking fish or krill oil to dampen the Cox-2 cytokines which come from diets low in Omega-3s.

Some people like antioxidants as well, to quench inflammation.
Grape seed extract is one commonly used, and there is an antioxidant naturally present in krill oil. Vitamin C is useful for maintaining joints and collagen production.

I have found that fatigue in general very responsive to d-ribose supplements. This is really helping me with stamina issues.
Also acetyl carnitine helps with mitochondria functions.

Here is my supplement thread with some suggestions:
ribose is near the end of that thread.
I haven't put up "everything" there yet, like lipoic acid.
But you can search "lipoic" on the regular PN forum and there are tons of posts about it.
http://neurotalk.psychcentral.com/thread121683.html