Hormonal Inflammation: How Hormones Trigger Chronic Inflammation and What You Can Do
When your body stays inflamed for months or years, it’s not always because of an injury or infection. More often, it’s because of hormonal inflammation, a state where hormone imbalances cause your immune system to stay stuck in overdrive. Also known as endocrine-driven inflammation, it’s behind many unexplained symptoms like joint pain, brain fog, and constant fatigue. Unlike acute inflammation that heals, hormonal inflammation creeps in silently—often ignored until it triggers something bigger like thyroid disease, diabetes, or autoimmune conditions.
This isn’t just about stress. Your cortisol, the body’s main stress hormone. Also known as the fight-or-flight hormone, it should drop after a stressful event. But if you’re constantly stressed, cortisol stays high, and your body starts ignoring it. That’s when inflammation spikes. Meanwhile, estrogen, a key female sex hormone that also regulates immune response. Also known as the inflammation modulator, it protects women from inflammation before menopause—but when levels crash, inflammation surges. And men? Low testosterone, a hormone that helps suppress inflammatory cytokines. Also known as the anti-inflammatory male hormone, it doesn’t just affect muscle or mood—it lets inflammation run wild.
What you’ll find in the posts below isn’t a list of miracle cures. It’s real, practical comparisons between medications and treatments that actually target this hidden cause of inflammation. You’ll see how drugs like prednisolone (used in hormonal inflammation flare-ups) stack up against alternatives, how antibiotics like fluoroquinolones can worsen it in older adults, and why managing something as simple as INR levels matters when hormones and blood thinners collide. These aren’t random drug guides—they’re pieces of a larger puzzle: how your hormones control your immune system, and how to take back control.
