Auto immune diseases are a huge health burden across the western society and often has symptoms such as inflammation, pain, swelling and serious misfortune.
So far there are over 100 different auto immune disorders ranging from type 1 diabetes to lupus. They all are a little different depending on the severity from mild to severe. Along with which system of the body is under attack and to what degree.
So what is an autoimmune disease and what dose it do?
Well everybody has an inbuilt immune system, which has the special job of defending the body from germs and foreign invaders. Everyday our bodies are exposed to millions of germs such as toxins, allergens, stress etc. Often we do not get sick from these germs because of our immune system. If however we are exposed and do get sick from one of these germs then it's our immune system that goes in and eliminates that germ along with building up an immunity to prevent the germ from invading again. Basically our immune system is the avengers and the germs are the alien invaders, every now and then the invaders may get into earth however the avengers are the hero's that save the day.
The problem with auto immune diseases is that the immune system accidentally catches healthy parts of the body in cross fire when attacking the germ invaders. Once this happens our immune system forgets to distinguish who is friend from foe and therefore commences a full blown attack against the healthy parts of your body. The healthy parts of your body then become casualties of war.
If you have ITP then this must be sounding all too familiar and that is because ITP is an auto immune disease.
ITP stands for Immune Thrombocytopenia - Immune meaning it stems from the immune system and Thrombocytopenia which stands for low levels of thrombocytes also known as platelets (low platelets). It's an autoimmune disease where the immune system has mistaken healthy platelets as a threat and has commenced an attack on those platelets.
Often I find many of us ITP patients are looking for ways to help deal with our condition and I'm starting to think maybe we are all looking in the wrong direction. We are so focused on the words Immune Thrombocytopenia that we forget this condition stems from an auto immune disease. Yes current conventional treatment methods for ITP accepts that the immune system is attacking itself hence offer many medicines that are immune suppressants however they have yet to find a cure. Which makes me wonder are we digging deep enough to find out exactly why an ITP patients body is out of balance?
Lately I have had a lot of people reach out to me telling me that they are in remission from ITP however each story is different in the way that they have gone into remission (eg. not all stories can be pin pointed to one specific thing that could potentially be the cure). However one thing remains the same and that is they have dug a little deeper in regards to finding out why their body is out of balance and have worked out how to regain that balance.
From what I can gather it all starts with doing some detective work. Some go to extensive lengths to get specific blood tests that showcases their food intolerance, others have gone to naturopaths, some have completely changed their diet to vegan and others have changed their lifestyle. So unless all these people as BS'ing me I really do believe there may be some way to restore the balance and hopefully overcome ITP.
However where do I even begin? I have had blood tests that showcase that I am a healthy individual that is apart from ITP however do I just accept this as my fate or should I be doing more?
Therefore I have done a little research and here are the below top tips to help me begin my journey with addressing my auto immune disease;
1) Check for Hidden infections - hidden infections such as bacteria, yeast and viruses can be the stem cause of an autoimmune disease
2) Gut Health - considering 70-80 of your immune system tissues sit in the gut it's a good idea to focus on your gut health. The easiest way to begin is to focus on eating anti-inflammatory foods - start eating whole foods, these are foods that haven't been processed or refined. To learn more about whole foods click here.
3) Stress Less - (so much easier said then done) however stress is well known to cause many issues in the body and does tend to worsen an immune system response.
4) Sleep - lack of sleep can cause metabolism issues which then causes you to eat/crave unhealthy foods which then can flare the auto immune disease. So best to try and ensure you get enough sleep.
5) Exercise - movement of the body is a natural anti-inflammatory so regular exercise is a good way to help with auto-immune diseases