Autoimmune Disease: Stop The Suffering
Autoimmune diseases are some of the most debilitating and life altering conditions that can leave people suffering for years, as a functional medicine specialist can attest. These conditions are increasing at an alarming rate affecting over 24 million people. Many of the people we see with autoimmune conditions are at the end of their rope. They have been to doctor after doctor after doctor only to be given more medications and fewer answers as to how to truly get better. This does not have to be your experience, or if it is, it does not have to continue. Because autoimmune diseases present themselves in nuanced ways with each person, conventional medical models have a difficulty treating them since they do not fall into well defined categories that research data can quantify. These diseases are as diverse as are the people they affect.
Autoimmune diseases like rheumatoid arthritis, Lupus, multiple sclerosis, Crohn’s, ulcerative colitis, thyroid disease, celiac disease, thyroid disease, irritable bowel disease, psoriasis, and more, are characterized by the immune system attacking its own tissue instead of limiting its attack to the foreign invaders it is designed to fight. This generally starts from some sort of inflammatory trigger. Too much inflammation for too long can cause the cells in your body to begin reading that data incorrectly which is when autoimmune conditions set in. When the source of inflammation can be identified, your immune system can heal and deploy its forces in appropriate ways again.
If you are one of the 24 millions people suffering from autoimmune conditions, most likely you have taken or are taking powerful immune suppressing medication that might improve symptoms a little, but do not address the cause of your disease. Most likely, your provider is not asking why you are sick, but rather searching for what disease description matches your symptoms in order to give you the correct label and prescribe the matching drug. Most likely you have been given multiple medications being told you will just have to manage your disease as best you can. The drugs used to treat many autoimmune conditions can lead to intestinal bleeding, kidney failure, depression, psychosis, osteoporosis, muscle loss, diabetes, widespread infection and cancer. There is a better way. You can restore your immune system’s faulty coding, and feel yourself again without increasing your risk for other severe health issues. The first step is working with a functional medicine team that truly understands autoimmune conditions from the inside out, not just what drugs match your symptoms. Then can you truly begin to heal.
