According to research, one out of every 24 men and one out of every 12 women have an autoimmune disease in the United States. Most of them don’t even know it. Typical autoimmune disorders include Lupus, Crohn’s Disease, Hashimoto’s Thyroiditis, Sjogren’s Syndrome and Rheumatoid Arthritis.
Autoimmune disorders are worst in the most developed nations. Canada, the United States and three or four European countries have the highest autoimmune disease rates in the world.
A Malfunction of the Immune System
So what’s causing autoimmune disease? It’s essentially a malfunction of the immune system, which is what makes it completely different from any other disease process. That’s because your immune system has turned against you instead of going after the bugs it was designed to attack.
About 20% of immune system problems are related to genetic factors. The other 80% is a combination of environmental type factors that have caused the immune system to go awry. Here are some of the things that can contribute to that immune system malfunction.
- A chronic infection like Lyme disease
- Heavy metal exposure
- Chemical exposure
- Stress
- Acute emotional trauma
- Mold
- Dietary proteins
The Three Phases of Autoimmune Disorders
Autoimmune disorders go through three stages which can be triggered right away, or can take decades to manifest fully.
People can go as long as 30 years in these first two phases and never know they are developing an autoimmune disease.
Lifestyle Changes
Addressing autoimmune diseases must involve lifestyle. It’s critical to reduce stress and get sufficient sleep each night. It’s necessary to get the inflammation levels down and figure out what the triggers are for that person.
The other thing is that you never truly get rid of an autoimmune disease. Instead, you identify the triggering factors. Then you start working to bring all of that under control so that the autoimmune disease will go into remission.
We work hard with people on their diets and removing those classes of foods, substances and lifestyle that trigger their immune system to go after them. Treatment must be approached with great care as killing off bugs, heavy metal chelation, etc., can actually make your condition worse if done at the wrong time. Fortunately good clinical management can go a long way to bring autoimmune diseases into remission and minimize flare-ups. Dr. O’Neill also takes a unique approach. He uses energetic kinesiology. This approach allows him to select and monitor what therapies we do and what order we do them in. Our objective is to provide the most effective solutions for patients.
If you’re struggling with an autoimmune disease, we want to help you. Contact our practice today to book an appointment.