Autoimmune disease

I spent the week of Christmas of 2018 doubled over in pain, with horrible stomach cramps and diarrhea. The mold I had inadvertently ingested along with my tomatoes was wreaking havoc on my digestive system. This was not how I wanted to spend the holiday! Then when I did recover, the problems would resurface whenever I ate tomatoes. Had a developed an allergy or intolerance to tomatoes?

After that bout of mold toxicity, my body seemed to continue to decline from there. It began with reoccurring illnesses. I used to claim only rarely to get sick. But now, it seemed like every week, I was fighting yet another infection!  Why I wondered, was I all of a sudden so vulnerable to getting sick?  Around that time, I also was experiencing quite a bit of knee pain. The problem was more pronounced on the right than the left. And while I was able to correct the problem, it wouldn’t take much for me to get injured again! Just in my normal daily living activities, I would feel a sudden pain in one of my knees!

I was also experiencing more pain in the arches of my feet. My ankles and Achilles were achy and felt vulnerable to injury. I bought special arch supports and wore an arch and ankle brace whatever I exercised.

I also noticed I have random aches and pains throughout my body. Sometimes it would be in my organs, and other times it would be in muscles, joints, or tendons. I worked on each problem as it occurred. But as a previously strong and healthy person, I started to feel like I was falling apart. I was playing Wackamole with my health. It seems like there was constantly something new that I had to address. And for the first time in my life, I felt like I was aging rapidly! I was used to skiing in the winter and hiking in the summer, and I had stopped doing those things because my body felt too vulnerable. What the heck was going on?

For a while, I thought I had developed arthritis. I was experiencing pain in my toes, as well. But it didn’t explain why all of my peripheral pain was showing up below my knees. Then one day, I decided to see if another autoimmune disease could explain more of my symptoms. I searched for a list online and asked my guides if I had an autoimmune disease; this list explained my symptoms. I was directed to mixed connective tissue disease. When I read the description of what it was, I was floored by how much it resembled my experiences!

According to the Merck manual, mixed connective tissue disease includes “systemic lupus erythematosus, systemic sclerosis, and polymyositis. Raynaud phenomenon, joint pains, various skin abnormalities, muscle weakness, and problems with internal organs can develop.” Sclerosis is the hardening of body tissue, and polymyositis is inflammation of the muscles and associated tissues.

I have had Raynaud’s syndrome (a whitening of my fingertips with cold) for over 2 decades.

Suddenly, everything started to make sense because of what I knew about the causes of autoimmune disease. For most people, a diagnosis of mix connective tissue disease is often dramatic and devastating. I certainly was angry! I felt like I had already experienced enough trauma in my life! What the heck had I done to deserve such a horrible disease?

But in a moment of despair, I felt the sudden knowing that I would be able to overcome this. I knew that if I identified the underlying causes and released them, I would heal. This was just one more challenge that I was being given to be of greater service to clients with similar challenges.

So why is my story relevant to you?

One out of 9 women and one out of 12 men has a diagnosed autoimmune disease. But because there are 3 stages of autoimmunity, and we aren’t typically diagnosed until the most advanced stage, many more people are on the path to developing an autoimmune disease. The rate of autoimmune disease has been growing steadily in the last two decades at an alarming rate. Many of us in the functional medicine community are deeply concerned about the trajectory we are on.

My passion and life purpose is to identify and release underlying causes in our way of healing. Because our bodies are already sophisticated healers, releasing the underlying causes is usually sufficient to reverse the symptoms, and it can even reverse the disease's progression!

So what are the underlying causes of autoimmune diseases? There are many, and there is still much research to be done. I’ve grouped them into 4 categories.

This hypothesis poses that there are at least two stages of developing an autoimmune disease. The first stage involves the opening up of the endogenous barriers we have that protect our vital organs. The two most commonly known ones are in the gut and the brain. If we have a leaky gut or brain barrier, it allows pathogens, toxins, and nutrients to leak out. Thus we become more vulnerable to environmental triggers.

So what causes those barriers to open?

This is still a budding area of research. Still, there is evidence for human endogenous retroviruses, NSAIDs, EMFs, and the overgrowth of harmful organisms like fungus (mold) or parasites to cause leaky gut. For gluten-sensitive people, gluten could be the trigger.  A bad diet, stress, and a pro-inflammatory lifestyle (bad habits or environmental exposures) can exacerbate any existing vulnerabilities.

Once the barriers are open, the levels of inflammation in the body can get out of control. The cells charged with getting rid of foreign invaders (the macroglia and microglia) get overwhelmed. In their desperate attempts to fight off the bad guys, they start confusing our own tissue for foreigners. This is one way the attack on our own tissues begins.

Auto-mimicry is the idea that proteins that enter our bodies look enough like our own tissue that our bodies can’t tell the difference between self and non-self. For example, with the autoimmune disease myasthenia gravis, the body has antibodies to the acetylcholine receptor, which flag these proteins for destruction. The sequence of the acetylcholine receptor shares a similar sequence in the herpes simplex virus (HSV). So the body attacks the acetylcholine receptor, thinking that it is targeting the virus.

Similarly, the protein gluten looks like casein (found in dairy) and the thyroid. So the body can get confused between the 3 proteins.

So why doesn’t auto-mimicry happen for everyone? It is likely due to the balance of risk and protective factors each person has. For example, someone who has a healthy lifestyle and is mentally healthy has an immune system that isn’t as overwhelmed. An immune system that has what it needs to do its job should be more effective at teasing apart what is native vs. foreign.

While auto-mimicry makes a lot of intuitive sense, and there is some evidence for its existence, scientists have not yet been able to find widespread proof that this is a major underlying cause. If you have a relative with an autoimmune disease, your risk of an autoimmune disease (not necessarily the same one) is higher than someone who doesn’t. The ADAR1 gene was recently discovered to be involved in autoimmunity. Normally our RNA is single-stranded, and viruses have double-stranded RNA. Our immune systems recognize viruses by their double-stranded RNA. But we also have short sequences of double-stranded RNA, and ADAR1 unzips them so that our immune system will only attack viruses. But if we have too many viruses, then ADAR1 gets confused and starts to unzip viral double-stranded RNA instead of our own. So the virus proliferates, and our own tissue becomes ripe for attack.

Other health practitioners such as Gabor Mate, Carolyn Myss, and Dr. Keesha Ewers and I believe that our relationship to ourselves is at the root of autoimmune disease. I’ve had incredible success with my autoimmune disease clients (and myself) when I’ve addressed the metaphysical underpinnings of why our bodies are attacking ourselves. My cat no longer has symptoms of arthritis, and I’ve taken her off of her supplements.

For 2.5 years before the beginning of these health issues, I had attracted a series of abusive housemates and landlords. My body wanted to know, “When will the attacks ever stop?”. I had to release the trauma that led it to believe that I would be under constant attack. My body was also responding to my belief about not getting enough support, and I had to help my body release the trauma it was holding with that issue.

Addressing these root causes allowed my body to stop attacking itself. I now feel as healthy as I did before all this started. Furthermore, the cycle of abuse has stopped, and I now have a fantastic landlord. Plus, I feel well supported! I believe that addressing the metaphysical underpinnings was key to halting the progression of my autoimmunity!