What are they? – the autoimmune diseases – what are the autoimmune disease symptoms?

List of Autoimmune Diseases

It’s possible this is the short list…

• Rheumatoid arthritis: inflammation of joints and surrounding tissues
• Systemic lupus erythematosus: affects skin, joints, kidneys, brain, and other organs
• Celiac sprue disease: a reaction to gluten (found in ALL grains) that causes damage to the lining of the small intestine
• Pernicious anemia: decrease in red blood cells caused by inability to absorb vitamin B-12
• Vitiligo: white patches on the skin caused by loss of pigment
• Scleroderma: a connective tissue disease that causes changes in skin, blood vessels, muscles, and internal organs
• Psoriasis: a skin condition that causes redness and irritation as well as thick, flaky, silver-white patches
• Inflammatory bowel diseases: a group of inflammatory diseases of the colon and small intestine
• Hashimoto’s disease: inflammation of the thyroid gland
• Addison’s disease: adrenal hormone insufficiency
• Graves’ disease: overactive thyroid gland
• Alopecia aerate: hair loss
• Vasculitis: symptoms include fever, fatigue, weight loss, and muscle and joint pain
• Ankylosing spondylitis: reduced flexibility in the spine, hunched-forward posture, pain in the back and joints
• Reactive arthritis: inflammation of joints, urethra, and eyes; may cause sores on the skin and mucus membranes
• Sjögren’s syndrome: destroys the glands that produce tears and saliva causing dry eyes and mouth; may affect kidneys and lungs
• Type 1 diabetes: destruction of insulin producing cells in the pancreas

Autoimmune Disease Symptoms

Symptoms may show up in any or multiple bodily systems:

• joints and muscles
• skin
• red blood cells
• blood vessels
• connective tissue
• endocrine glands

Sources of Autoimmune

You must understand that there are two medical systems and they would answer these questions differently. Mainstream medicine believes that these diseases are incurable and often even that they are caused by aging and cannot be reversed but only slowed or managed by medication. Naturally these doctors are educated by the mainstream medical system and research funded by pharmaceutical companies.

But the emerging practice of functional medicine threatens to become THE mainstream medicine of the next 20-30 years and it would tell us that these disorders have a root cause that is one or more of these sources:

• Food
• Chemicals
• Infection
• Nutrition

Food – food is medicine and the wrong food becomes the wrong medicine. Food that causes inflammation over time generates an imbalance in the gut where 80% of the immune system calls home.

Chemicals – we use them daily for cleaning, and more. We also get exposed to them as we move from place to place outdoors. We also get exposed to them through our foods that are sprayed more than ever before in history and now genetically modified with organisms known to cause disease.

Infection – we are exposed to a variety of infections and often we can suffer from infections whose symptoms we take as normal or something we just have to suffer through.

Nutrition – our modern food chain has changed dramatically from days when we only ate whole foods to days when we only eat packaged or fast food. The chances that we’ll receive all the micronutrients we require are slim. Many of us suffer from Dybiosis – a dominance in our guts of bad bacteria vs. good bacteria – this means in part that we don’t derive the nutrients we need from our food as meager as that might be.

Treatment

As we look for the non-invasive treatment and try to gain early prevention, the following provide a comprehensive program.

• eat a balanced and healthy diet
• exercise regularly
• get plenty of rest
• take vitamin supplements
• decrease stress
• limit sun exposure
• avoid any known triggers of flare-ups

Summary

Scientists are reasonably sure that up to 40% of diseases have at their root autoimmune disease. In general, when it comes to root causes, there will usually be an equal number of undiagnosed autoimmune cases.

Because autoimmune is a progressive condition, the symptoms can sneak up on us and fool us into thinking we are “simply getting older” until one day we wake up with symptoms that we cannot accept – that’s a little late in the cycle to decide to do something but it’s never too late.