What You Need To Know About Autoimmune Disease

Facts:

  • Autoimmunity has increased threefold over the last 50 years
  • It currently affects between 50 and 75 million Americans (compared with 12 million with cancer and 25 million with heart disease)
  • Affects more women than men, with 75% being female
  • There are more than 100 confirmed autoimmune disease with many more diseases suspected to be autoimmune in nature
  • Having on autoimmune disease increase the chance of developing more
  • It accounts for over $100 billion annually in healthcare costs
  • Up to 45% of people with autoimmune disease are labeled hypochondriacs in earliest stage of illness (unless of course they were lucky enough to find functional medicine early in there journey!)
  • Average time it takes to get a diagnosis is 4.6 years and 5 doctors
  • Conventional medicine offers no cure for autoimmune disease: treatment is based on symptom management only
  • Evidence, including medical trials, is accumulating for the inclusion of natural approaches to managing autoimmune disease like diet and lifestyle interventions! 

Pssst.......Read Closely 🙂

The first thing to really understand about autoimmune diseases is that they are a disease of the IMMUNE SYSTEM. If you have an autoimmune disease, somewhere along the way your immune system went wonky and began attacking your own tissues. In some people it is your thyroid, in others it is your intestines, your pancreas, your skin, your joints or your brain. But no matter what part of your body is being invaded, the culprit is your immune system and the true solution lies within your immune system. Your body is a complex network of special cells and organs that defend the body from germs and other foreign invaders and it is doing this every second of every day but with autoimmune disease it gets a bit mixed up and makes autoantibodies that attack normal cells by mistake. This happens only if the body is very stressed and overwhelmed working hard to defend itself against something potentially dangerous, such as an allergen, an infection, a toxin, or even a food, and it fails to differentiate between the intruder and parts of your own body. Your stressed immune system then turns antibodies against you, mistakenly attacking your own tissues instead of invaders, causing a potentially wide range of symptoms.

In order to treat, prevent, and reverse your autoimmune disease you’ll need to get your immune system back under control. Focus on SUPPORTING and STRENGTHENING the immune system by getting to the root cause of why the immune system went rogue in the first place. While there is no known cure for autoimmune disease remission is definitely possible.

Now that you know autoimmune disease is a problem with the immune system it is important to understand that conventional medicine will have you believe that genetics are fully to blame but, this is simply not true. While it is true that your genetics can give you a 25% chance of having an autoimmune disease the other 75% of the picture is environmental. This is what I am trying to convey to you that your choices matter and it’s up to you to CHOOSE a diet and lifestyle that supports your health. Most experts in the functional medicine world agree that the 5 most common environmental causes of Autoimmune Disease in no particular order are:

  1. LEAKY GUT
  2. TOXINS
  3. GLUTEN
  4. STRESS
  5. INFECTIONS

In my practice I like to simplify the above 5 underlying causes into 3 basic causes of CRAP FOOD, TOXINS and STRESS! If we can MINIMIZE and take out what is causing your inflammation and dis-ease (usually one of or a combination of the 5 things listed above), while MAXIMIZING what your unique body is missing and PRIORITIZE an environment for healing then that is a recipe for ample health!

You can be assured that in working with me to address your autoimmune disease dynamic we will be addressing GUT HEALTH because after all if you have an autoimmune disease then your gut has become leaky. This means the tight junctions that hold your gut lining together aren’t doing their job as effectively anymore and allowing undigested food particles, toxins, microbes and more to escape and enter your bloodstream. All of these escapees are now recognized by your immune system as foreign invaders which trigger a huge rise in inflammation and puts your immune system on high alert. The continual strain on your immune system eventually causes it to send out symptoms and if you don’t listen autoimmune disease can begin. ALL DISEASE BEGINS IN THE GUT! The gut is the gateway to health, it houses 80% of your immune system, and you can’t have a healthy immune system without a healthy gut. As you should of picked up by now……….the good news is with the right plan your gut can be healed.

I can feel you getting excited and hopeful about feeling better. I’m not saying it is always easy and will take commitment but it is without a doubt possible! You have the power to manage your body’s response to autoimmunity and the power to choose a healthy, vibrant and happy life!