Autoimmune Diseases
Autoimmune disease is on the rise like never before. You don’t have to “grin and bear it”, if you are concerned about your risks or dealing with an autoimmune disease or even suspect that you are having autoimmune-like symptoms, we can help!
Are you feeling sluggish most days?
Are you struggling with GI issues like bloating?
Have you noticed that you’ve suddenly become “allergic” or sensitive to certain foods that never bothered you before?
You could be experiencing the early stages of autoimmune reactivity.
Autoimmunity occurs when an overburdened immune system becomes hypersensitized, attacking healthy tissues along with foreign invaders.
How do you become so sensitized? Normally, your immune system is already very busy fighting off a wide variety of invaders – including allergens, toxins, bacteria, and viruses.
Unfortunately, many people overload their immune systems every day, in a wide variety of ways – from poor food choices, to absorbing toxins from their environment, polluted water and even cosmetics. Apart from toxic overload, gut issues are a major catalyst for compromised immune function. In particular, a condition called Leaky Gut (when cracks or holes in the lining of the intestinal tract allow toxins to leach into your blood) is the most problematic. Leaky gut is considered a precursor for many if not all autoimmune illness.
As a result, your immune system stays on “high alert” all the time. This can cause it to start to attack proteins in healthy tissues as well and even entire organs. Various systems in your body can suffer from your joints, brain, skin, and glands like your thyroid.
There are hundreds of autoimmune illnesses, each of which have their own unique symptoms, but one of the prevalent autoimmune illnesses that we see often is connected to the thyroid gland, called Hashimoto’s. Symptoms of autoimmune thyroid disease can include depression, fluctuations in weight, difficulty sleeping, and anxiety.
The conventional approach to treating autoimmune disease centers primarily around prescribing powerful, expensive immune-suppressing medication such as injection biologics like Humira, Remicade and Enbrel – rather than identifying and addressing the root cause like toxins or gut issues. In the case of Hashimoto’s synthetic thyroid hormone replacement is used.
This is problematic for two reason, for one, synthetic thyroid meds can’t be tested in your blood to see if you are on the right dose and taking thyroid replacement doesn’t begin to deal with gut imbalances or your autoimmune reaction that caused Hashimoto’s in the first place.While thyroid replacement therapy is affordable, most people need higher and higher doses because these meds don’t address the increasing issues with their autoimmune response.
What’s worse is that people still report feeling poorly on all these medications which do nothing to address the inflammation and underlying imbalances that caused autoimmunity in the first place.
That’s why it’s so important to partner with a provider that’s trained in three areas. For one, they should know how to recognize and test for autoimmune reactions, understand how to properly deal with hormonal imbalances, and be able to help you with gut health issues- as all of these things are deeply connected when you have autoimmunity.
Many times we see patients who are already dealing with hormonal imbalances, like thyroid issues. They are on hormone replacement, but their autoimmune issues are not being addressed because their doctor hasn’t run the antibody testing. Many doctors assume your hypothyroidism is just a function of stress or getting older, and they don’t necessarily make the connection that you may autoimmune issues that are usually brought on by gut issues like Leaky Gut.
Healing autoimmune illness involves a special blend of changes to your diet, stress levels, and incorporating natural medicines and lifestyle adjustments, to restore and retrain your immune system, so that you can experience vibrant health again.
At My PrimeLife, we have a well-thought-out framework to properly diagnose and treat autoimmune illnesses, so that you can get the answers you need and get your body back on track.
Following advanced lab tests and a detailed discussion of your symptoms and history, our team can map out an effective treatment plan that we will execute together with plenty of support and guidance.
If you have been experiencing symptoms that may be connected with autoimmune disease, or would like a review the current state of your hormone replacement therapy, schedule an appointment with PrimeLife.
