Functional Medicine Solutions For Autoimmune Disease

There are a record number of people being diagnosed with autoimmune disease and even more suffering from autoimmune symptoms. The conventional thought on autoimmune conditions is that they are idiopathic (which means that the cause is unknown). 

 

In recent years however it has been found that various factors (like toxicity, injury, and viral or bacterial infection) can cause autoimmunity.

 

Usually, when a person begins to have autoimmune symptoms their first step is to go to their primary care doctor.  Sometimes they have a test at the doctor's office (usually a single test to confirm the disease the doctor suspects), and then they are medicated.

 

THE LIMITATIONS OF CONVENTIONAL TREATMENT

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The goal of the primary care physician is simply to mitigate symptoms by administering steroids, anti-inflammatory drugs, pain medication, or immunosuppressant drugs.  

 

These drugs temporarily stop the pain signal to the brain, suppress the immune system, and essentially shut off the ‘fire alarm’ of the body that is trying to tell you that something is wrong.  

 

There is usually no attempt to deal with the actual cause of the organ or joint damage.  The real problem is never addressed.

 

It is very common for patients with autoimmune symptoms to be given an autoimmune diagnosis, especially when they don't fit the diagnostic criteria for a specific disease.  Autoimmunity is usually a catch-all term to explain a mysterious condition.  

 

Maybe this happened to you, you go to a doctor, and their initial basic workup reveals that 'you're normal and there is no reason for your symptoms' so they label your symptoms as 'autoimmune in nature' and give you steroids and pain medications and send you on your way. 

 

The wrong diagnosis is always worse than no diagnosis at all as a patient sometimes spends their entire life trying to make sense of and treat a diagnosis based on wrong information. 

 

RETHINKING AUTOIMMUNITY

 

One of the most damaging concepts in circulation is that autoimmunity is the body ‘attacking itself’.  I do not like this concept for a few reasons. 

 

First of all, I do not think it is a biochemically accurate description of what is happening - the body is reacting to a perceived threat.  

 

The second reason is that it places the burden of responsibility on the patient. It is essentially the patient’s ‘fault’ since the patient's body is ‘doing this to itself.' 

 

The body does not intentionally harm itself, it is doing everything it can to survive and adapt to a hostile internal environment. 

 

It is the functional medicine practitioner's job to identify what 'perceived threat' your body is reacting to, remove that threat, and restore normal autoimmune function.