AutoImmunity (AI) encompasses a wide variety of diseases and pre-disease states. There are numerous underlying issues in the body, which when triggered by environmental, infectious, toxic and severe stress situations, manifest the autoimmune response.
What is autoimmunity? It is when the immune system has developed antibodies, usually to a foreign protein in the blood stream, then that antibody sees your own cell protein have the same shape and it ‘tags’ those proteins for destruction. The other component is that your immune system has failed to ‘call off the attack’.
Autoimmunity has increased greatly in the last 40 years. It has many different causes, underlying conditions and encompasses a wide variety of symptoms. AI requires specific, comprehensive treatment and thorough analysis of laboratory testing for targeted treatment. Medical treatment is aimed at diminishing your immune system to decrease the attack. Functional medicine approaches this by finding and supporting the body’s poorly functioning processes and immune vulnerabilities. While there is no cure, effective treatment can often bring partial or complete remission of symptoms and function. Lab findings similarly improve.
The complexity of is that dozens of triggers can stimulate the autoimmune process. A well experienced FM practitioner recognizes that you must treat all the triggers simultaneously, like holding down all the ‘whack-a-moles’ in that child’s arcade game.