Autoimmune

Avoid These 10 Mistakes If You Have An Autoimmune Condition

So if you’ve got an autoimmune disease, get yourself a coffee or a tea, pull up a chair, and have a listen, because you may really learn some interesting information out of these points. These are 10 common things I would associate with many people I’ve seen over the years with autoimmune disease.

The first one is ignoring symptoms. Having unusual symptoms and just passing them off as like having a sore foot or having worked hard the week before or the month before and being tired, excessively tired. So if you’ve got recurrence of symptoms, and especially some use symptoms you’ve not had previously, or strange things, and especially if your partner or friends are saying, “Hey, get it checked out,” but you’re ignoring it, well, you’re a dummy. You need to get it checked out. Okay? So don’t ignore symptoms.

Second one is thinking drugs will cure the illness. Many people have been to the doctor, take a pharmaceutical medication, and think, “Well, this will cure it. I’m going to take these pills and I can go back and have my six beers at night and pizza for breakfast, or whatever, and it will all be good.” Not a good idea. Drugs don’t cure any illness. Just remember that. All they do is mitigate symptoms to a degree, but there’s no cure at all.

The third one, living a high-stress lifestyle. Paying no attention to high stress, paying no attention to arguments or problems with people, issues with the boss, issues with employees or employer, partner issues, or children or teenagers or neighbors or whatever, but some type of conflict. This needs sorting. This pushes your cortisol up, which pushes your inflammation up. This reduces your immune system’s effectiveness. So high stress needs sorting. It’s a big one.

Fourth one, chemical exposures. So not dealing adequately with things like spraying glyphosate or Roundup around the place, glyphosate. Using lots of chemicals, different sprays, working with fiberglass resin, for example, working with gasoline all the time, washing your hands in turpentine or crap like that, spray painting without masks, all these sorts of exposures to chemicals. You need to have a look at chemicals in your life and hopefully get rid of them all.

Further readings:

Fifth one, relying on medical aide only. So purely relying on the GP and not talking to people in the health food stores, not looking at diets, not looking at anything except drugs and medical treatment. That’s a mistake. Medicine is not going to save you with autoimmune disease. In fact, it won’t even improve the quality of your life that much. It may help to mitigate some pain, but that’s about as far as it will go. So be careful not to rely 100% on the doctor, but also to discuss your problems with other healthcare professionals as well.

Sixth one is poor diet. Well, it’s like the high-stress lifestyle. It goes hand-in-hand, doesn’t it? Many people I’ve seen over the years with autoimmune disease has had very, very poor diets, shocking diets. Too much alcohol, too many carbo, refined carbo foods, lots of takeaways, lots of candy, lots of ice cream.
Of course, lots of poor gut development, we’re looking at. Of course, poor gut development leads into bacterial or yeast problems. It leads into inflammation. Bang! Autoimmunity. That’s what happens. So the diet definitely needs fixing up.

Seventh point, self-medicating and treating yourself with Dr. Google. A good thing to do is to stop going to Dr. Google all the time or looking for health information regarding autoimmune disease and how to treat it, but to go and see someone and actually get something done about it, because self-medicating is not a great idea. You don’t know what to take, how much to take, when to take, when not to take. So just be careful. It’s not an area perhaps you’re well-versed in or experienced in. You’re better off really working with someone who is.

Point number eight, little to no testing. Many people with, for example, ulcerative colitis. Well, maybe they only had one or two blood tests done and a little bit of a stool testing done. They may have had a colonoscopy done, and that’s about it. But they never had the whole digestive system properly analyzed for bacteria, viruses, yeasts, parasites. It was never checked for.
So proper testing is very important. Stool testing, blood testing, maybe stress, salivary cortisol, hair testing, maybe heavy metal testing in the hair. But these few tests for you are very important to do with autoimmune. So little to no testing is going to give you no indication on what you’ve got or what direction you’re heading in.

Point nine, not exercising, too much couch-surfing, too much Netflix-binging, sitting there with your mobile phone all the time. You need to get off your butt and do stuff, particularly walking. You get your Apple Watch on or your garment or whatever you wear on your hand, electronic stuff, and then get out there and do stuff. Make a big difference. Your immune system loves activity, and it will really help to balance your immune system.

The tenth one is poor follow-up, meaning not really understanding the relationship between you and your healthcare provider, is try to work out which direction you’re heading in. Put a proper treatment plan in place and then follow it through. Have good follow-up because this condition is with you for life. It will stay with you a long, long time. You need to try and whittle symptoms down and cut them down to a point where you’ve got a good quality of life. Your healthcare professional can help you. Together, you can work on that, and get to a point where you’ve got a comfortable life, hopefully free from side effects from medications.

So that’s my little take on autoimmune disease. I hope you’ve enjoyed this series of about 15 videos. Just some basic information to get you started on your quest. Don’t forget the role on digestive health, and to get the gut in high shape is very important.