Autoimmune Disease – How to Improve Your Symptoms Using Functional Medicine
A functional medicine approach to autoimmune diseases.
Autoimmune diseases are dramatically increasing throughout the world. The emotional toll this group of diseases takes on you, your family, and your friends can sometimes be heavier than the disease itself. These are some of the conditions that are being labeled as an epidemic:
Type I Diabetes
Multiple sclerosis
Hashimoto’s Thyroiditis/Graves Disease
Lupus
Rheumatoid Arthritis
IBS/Crohn's Disease/ Ulcerative Colitis
Psoriasis
And the list goes on.
In fact, Dr. Frederick Miller, NIH Scientist Emeritus and former head of the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences Environmental Autoimmunity Group, believes autoimmune diseases will become one of the most predominant medical disorders in the United States.
But if you're suffering from an autoimmune disease, the experience, and the day-to-day challenges are much more personal. You’re most likely experiencing:
Fatigue
Pain/Inflammation
Muscle weakness
Irritating rashes
Lack of control
And these are just some of the symptoms you experience. If you have an autoimmune disease, you know the physical symptoms are only a part of the disease.
In my practice at Denver Sports and Holistic Medicine, my patients with autoimmune diseases are looking for more than ways to manage their condition. They’re looking for ways to thrive with their disease.
In today's blog, I'm providing an overview of:
What is autoimmunity?
Causes and symptoms of autoimmune diseases
Treatments available using a functional medicine approach
This group of illnesses is often complex and ranges in the severity of its symptoms and impact.
What Is Autoimmunity?
Your immune system protects your body from invading microorganisms such as viruses or bacteria. But sometimes, our immune system recognizes our body's own tissues as invaders and attacks itself. These attacks on your own body can lead to a broad group of over 100 autoimmune diseases.(2)
Types of Autoimmune Diseases and Who They Impact
If you’ve been diagnosed with an autoimmune disease, you’re most likely filled with questions. “Why me?” “How many other autoimmune diseases are there?” You’re not alone in this. So let’s go through these answers together.
Autoimmune diseases are often categorized into two types of disorders.
Organ-specific autoimmune disorders
Non-organ-specific autoimmune disorders
Organ-specific autoimmune disorders directly affect one organ. For example, Hashimoto's disease affects your thyroid gland. Addison's disease affects your adrenal gland. If you have type 1 diabetes, this affects your pancreas.
Non-organ-specific autoimmune disorders have a widespread effect on your body. Examples include rheumatoid arthritis and lupus.
Women are more likely to suffer from autoimmune diseases than men. In fact, 80% of all autoimmune disease cases are women. We still aren’t sure why women are more affected than men.
Women tend to be affected more during stressful times and changes in hormones, such as during pregnancy or menopause.
On the other hand, some types of autoimmune diseases, such as lupus, are more common in people of color. Blacks, Hispanics, and Indigenous women are affected more than white women.
Let’s explore more causes for autoimmune diseases and its symptoms.
What Causes Autoimmune Diseases?
It's not completely understood why the body recognizes certain cells or tissues as an enemy. Scientists believe genetics and environmental factors influence autoimmune diseases.
Family members may share the same genes putting them at an increased risk of developing an autoimmune disease. Autoimmune diseases tend to run in families but may present differently from one family member to another.(2) Evidence also suggests that if one family member develops rheumatoid arthritis, another family member may develop a different autoimmune disease.(4)(7)
There’s tons of research supporting a genetic role in autoimmune diseases. But there are also environmental factors that come into play. Environmental factors linked to autoimmune diseases include:
Trauma
Heavy Metals
Hazardous Wastes
Chronic Stress
Medications
Inflammatory Foods
Poor Sleep
Infections
Smoking (3)(6)
These environmental factors have also been shown to contribute to intestinal permeability, aka Leaky Gut Syndrome. In recent studies, Leaky Gut Syndrome is seen as a pathway for environmental toxins to enter the body through “leaks” within the intestinal wall.
Intestinal permeability may lead to the development of autoimmune diseases in those genetically predisposed.(3)
There’s a saying in functional medicine:
“Your parents load the gun (genetics), and you pull the trigger (epigenetics - the environment you put your body in) which affects gene expression.”
What we currently know about autoimmune diseases seems to support this statement.(6)
What Are Common Autoimmune Diseases?
If you have an autoimmune disease, you know firsthand how difficult it can be to live with symptoms. Autoimmune diseases can affect different parts of your body. Daily activities you used to never think about suddenly become major chores. Some of the most commonly known diseases include:
Diseases of joints and muscles like Rheumatoid Arthritis and Lupus
Disorders in the digestive tract, such as Celiac disease and Crohn’s disease
Endocrine disorders like Grave’s disease and Hashimoto’s disease
Disorders of the skin like Psoriasis
Diseases of the Nervous System, such as Multiple Sclerosis and Guillain-Barre Syndrome
Other commonly known disorders like Pernicious Anemia, Type I Diabetes, and Myasthenia Gravis
Although your symptoms may vary depending on your exact disease, common symptoms experienced are, but aren’t limited to:
Pain
Fatigue
Rashes
Nausea
Headaches
Dizziness
Chronic inflammation
Loss of function (8)
These symptoms make everyday activities like buttoning a shirt, holding a spoon or walking take up valuable time and energy.
Traditional medicine offers some ways to help you manage your disease. It’s really about managing your symptoms. What if you could dig deeper — manage your symptoms and find ways to improve your overall quality of life?
How Functional Medicine Doctors Can Help
Although autoimmune diseases typically don’t have a cure, your symptoms can be effectively managed, and some diseases can be put into remission. Everyone’s genetics and environments are different, meaning your treatment must be unique to you.(9)
Functional medicine can be an ideal treatment approach for managing and treating the symptoms and the root cause of your autoimmune disease. Functional medicine doctors approach each person as an individual with different needs and factors affecting their health.
Using a holistic approach, functional medicine doctors dig deep to find the root cause of your symptoms. We work with you to make shifts in your lifestyle using a variety of modalities to help you manage your disease rather than having your disease manage you.
Functional medicine doctors, like myself, may recommend:
Nutritional and Lifestyle counseling
Nutritional supplementation
Herbal medicine
Autoimmune diseases like irritable bowel syndrome, multiple sclerosis, and rheumatoid arthritis all have distinct clinical presentations. These diseases share the disruption of the gut microbiome and intestinal permeability (leaky gut syndrome).
Functional medicine doctors can partner with you to help improve your diet by understanding the effects of inflammatory foods and the disruption they can cause to your gut microbiome. Changes in your diet can effectively manage your autoimmune disease and potentially put it into remission.(10)
For example, Vitamin D has been found to be a powerful agent in treating autoimmune diseases. It plays a vital role in strengthening your immune system and gut microbiome.(11) Vitamin D also plays a role in maintaining the integrity of the gut lining.
Traditional Chinese Medicine, including acupuncture, can help relieve your symptoms by reducing inflammation, aiding digestive function, and regulating the immune system.
Regular acupuncture can effectively treat autoimmune diseases such as rheumatoid arthritis, lupus, and other related and non-related diseases.(12)
Acupuncture reduces your symptoms and can also speed up your body’s ability to heal from infection. It stimulates parts of the autonomic nervous system to heighten your immune response and send signals throughout your body to aid in its healing.
The stimulation from acupuncture strengthens your immune system by increasing the number of red and white blood cells. This supports your response to environmental toxins entering your body.
You can experience an effective and long-lasting treatment for your autoimmune disease by:
Using a functional medicine approach
Diving into the root cause of your symptoms
Working with a doctor using science-backed interventions
Science-backed interventions can heal your gut, stimulate your immune system, and calm your nervous system. So you can start living the lifestyle you’ve been craving.
Using Functional Medicine to Treat Autoimmunity in Denver
If you've been suffering from an autoimmune disease for a while, you've experienced numerous doctor's visits. You’ve most likely undergone an exhausting amount of testing and have had to explain yourself and your symptoms repeatedly.
What makes my practice at Denver Sports and Holistic Medicine different is that I partner with you. I provide a holistic and comprehensive approach to help you manage the symptoms of your autoimmune disease.
I’m Dr. Martina Sturm and I’m dedicated to helping people like you find and manage the root cause of your autoimmune disease — because band-aid fixes don’t cut it.
I spend time with you to gather a detailed history and ask you questions you may not have given any thought to. Questions that may provide valuable information leading to the underlying and root causes of your disease.
At Denver Sports and Holistic Medicine, I dig deep. Deeper than most western medicine doctors, to help find what treatment approach is going to work best for you based on your:
Medical history
Diet
Medications
Living/work environment
Lifestyle choices
And a variety of other factors affecting the overall function of your immune system and other body systems playing a role in your disease.
Using my extensive knowledge in Traditional Chinese Medicine, acupuncture, nutrition, and other science-backed treatments, I’ll help you go from feeling like you're surviving with your autoimmune disease to thriving.
Book a free 15-minute consultation to get more information on how an individualized approach at Denver Sports and Holistic Medicine can help you.
References:
How Can We Curb the Autoimmune Epidemic? New Paper Suggests a Path Forward
The Functional Medicine Solution for Autoimmune Disease - Dr. Christine Maren
Autoimmune Diseases: Causes, Symptoms, What Is It & Treatment