A process, not a personality
You are not an inflamed person as an identity. Inflammation is a set of signals: swelling, heat, immune traffic, and repair. After a sprain it is supposed to show up and then leave. When joints ache most mornings, gums bleed, or recovery from training takes longer every month, the process may be sticking around.
Drs. Sani Kohen, D.C. and Tara Kohen, D.C. ask where you feel it and what else is true: poor sleep, a gut that bloats, a training week that never rests. Functional Medicine does not treat the word itself. It looks for the drivers you can actually name.
Markers your physician may already hold
C-reactive protein, often shortened to CRP, is a blood marker many physicians already order. A single CRP does not explain why the process is active, and FRI does not invent a private cutoff. The number is context, read with your exam and your history.
Advanced bloodwork can widen that look when glucose, lipids, iron, or a blood count would change the plan. Bring the labs you have so nothing is redrawn for sport. Abnormal results still belong with the physician who manages disease, not only with a nutrition note.
Food, sleep, training load, gums, and gut
Short sleep and a training load you cannot repay will keep a repair signal turned up. So can a gum infection you have been postponing, which is a dentist's visit, not a supplement. Food patterns matter, and they are individual. There is no miracle anti-inflammatory stack and no brand protocol.
The gut health page is the place for bloating and stool changes. A gut kit is not the treatment for a sore knee. Nutrition and supplementation follows what you eat and what the labs showed, one change at a time.
Movement without pretending pain is only chemical
A joint can hurt because it is loaded badly, because it is inflamed, or both. Chiropractic Sports Medicine and Neuromuscular Rehabilitation examine the mechanical side. Blaming every ache on inflammation and skipping the exam leaves the actual irritant in place.
Functional medicine at FRI does not replace a primary physician, endocrinologist, gastroenterologist, or mental health clinician. Fever, a hot swollen joint, chest pain, or unexplained weight loss needs medical care. This conversation assumes those emergencies are already being handled.
What to expect when you are seen for Chronic Inflammation
You can begin with a complimentary 20-minute consultation. The office is out of network, provides a superbill, and accepts HSA and FSA funds. Appointments are Monday–Thursday, 9–6.
Bring existing CRP or other bloodwork and a sketch of sleep and training. Expect a talk about load, food, and gums as much as about labs. You will not be sold a stack of anti-inflammatory products.
Where Newport patients usually go next on this site
People driving up from the peninsula and Corona del Mar often start with neck pain or shoulder pain after paddling and desk time, or with lower back pain after long sits in the car. Harbor athletes looking for a tissue exam rather than a generic rub sometimes book Active Release Technique or a gait and postural look when the foot and hip are part of the story.
Others are not here for a joint at all. Perimenopause and gut health questions are common alongside training, and the matching lab pages are DUTCH hormone testing and GI-MAP stool testing. If you want the wider map of the city, the Newport Beach chiropractor page ties the three pillars together. The doctors' backgrounds are on the about page.
What a Newport Beach week actually asks of the body
Newport Beach is not one neighborhood. Corona del Mar climbs away from the water, Balboa Peninsula is flat and windy, Newport Coast sits on hills above the toll road, and the streets around Eastbluff, Big Canyon, and Fashion Island mix short drives with long desk blocks. People paddle in the harbor, ride the Back Bay loop, play tennis, or swim before a day of meetings. That mix shows up in the history we take: which shoulder loads a paddle, which hip complains on the hills, which neck tightens after a commute that ends at a screen. None of those details is a diagnosis. They tell us which movements to test.
Food and schedule questions belong in the same visit when symptoms are not only mechanical. A late dinner after a harbor event, an early paddle, and a short night are ordinary Newport weeks. If you are also dealing with cycle changes, reflux, or a fatigue that does not match your training, the Functional Medicine side of the clinic can look at labs chosen from that story. The manual care and the lab conversation happen in the same practice, so you are not retelling the history in two buildings.
The drive up the 73 from Newport Beach
Most Newport Beach patients take the 73 north from MacArthur Boulevard or from Bison and stay on the toll road until the Mission Viejo exits that feed La Alameda. Door to door it is about 18 miles. Midday it can be close to 25 minutes. Late afternoon toward the coast, or the reverse commute when the toll road stacks, it stretches toward 40. The office is in a ground-floor suite at 26400 La Alameda, Suite 100, Mission Viejo, CA 92691, with parking at the building. Hours are Monday through Thursday, 9 to 6.
Plan the return before you book. A late-afternoon visit lands you back on the 73 toward Newport when the toll road is busiest. Morning and early afternoon slots are usually the calmer drive. Call (949) 312-1754 if you need to move a time. The first step for many people is a complimentary 20-minute consultation, which is a fit conversation, not a treatment squeezed into a sales pitch.
Questions patients ask
Is chronic inflammation a diagnosis?
It is a process, not a personality and not a complete diagnosis. A physician may already be following CRP or other markers for a specific disease. FRI uses that context and asks about sleep, food, training load, gums, and gut symptoms. The visit does not replace the workup for infection, autoimmune disease, or cancer. Those stay with your physicians.
Will you give me an anti-inflammatory supplement stack?
No. There is no miracle stack and no brand protocol. If nutrition or a supplement is discussed, it is one decision tied to your labs and your diet, without a dose copied onto this page. Food changes are things you can keep. A long product list is not the plan, even if every bottle says inflammation on the label.
Can gum disease matter here?
Bleeding gums are a reason to see a dentist, and they belong in the history because an ongoing oral infection is a real inflammatory load. FRI does not treat gum disease. Mentioning it keeps the plan from chasing a food culprit while an obvious source sits in the mouth. Bring any dental notes you have.
Does a high CRP mean I need a gut test?
Not by itself. CRP says a process is active. It does not name the source. A gut test is for gut symptoms, described on the gut health page. Joint mechanics need an exam. FRI will not order a stool kit because a blood marker moved. Your physician interprets the marker in the context of your diagnoses.
Related care for Newport Beach
Chronic Inflammation is handled at the Mission Viejo clinic, not in a satellite office in Newport Beach. The related pages below stay on that same visit and add the methods or neighboring problems that usually come up in the history.
- Newport Beach chiropractor
How people from Newport Beach reach 26400 La Alameda and what the three pillars cover.
- Chronic Inflammation clinical overview
The non-geographic condition page, if you want the clinic-wide explanation without the drive.
- Functional Medicine
The pillar this problem sits in at Functional Restoration Institute.
- Gut Health in this city
Digestion problems rarely arrive as one tidy symptom. Bloating, stool changes, and food reactions can travel together or take turns. This page.
- Autoimmune Conditions in this city
This page is for you if a physician has already diagnosed an autoimmune disease, or if that physician is still sorting a.
- Metabolic Syndrome in this city
Metabolic syndrome is a cluster your physician recognizes: waist size, blood pressure, glucose, triglycerides, and HDL cholesterol. FRI does not replace that.
- Sleep & Insomnia in this city
Sleep problems have a clock, a chemistry, and often a body part that hurts. Caffeine, a late bedtime, a cortisol curve, thyroid.
- Advanced Bloodwork
Advanced bloodwork goes past a bare metabolic panel when the question needs more context. Lipids in more detail, glucose with insulin, iron.
