We’re talking about autoimmune disease. We’re doing a series on it. Well, like any condition, first, you need to work out if you’ve got the condition or not and what it is. So diagnosis is very helpful. It’s not mandatory, but it’s very, very helpful that you have a diagnosis to get the right kind of treatment. So unless you get diagnosed and get in there, you won’t really know what you’re dealing with or the severity of the condition. It could be very mild, it could be very serious. One thing I want you to bear in mind with autoimmune conditions is no two people experience the same disease alike. Some people have a very mild case, for example, of lupus. With other people, within six or 12 months, can pass away from it. It can just ramp up and kill them.
One of my wife’s best friends passed away from scleroderma when she was 38 years old. I remember Karen quite well and her husband Tony. But what shocked me with Karen is when we used to visit her, if I was in the kitchen and opened the refrigerator, all I saw was about five bars of chocolate in the refrigerator. I didn’t really see much else in there. Karen was a lovely lady, but she just didn’t really like to eat good food. And as in causes, I talked about that, crappy lifestyles and diets pushed people into autoimmunity.
So if you’re watching this and you’ve got a crappy lifestyle, crappy diet and you do don’t feel well, you really need to get onto it and get it checked out because Karen passed away 38. It’s not something I would like anyone else to experience what her two daughters experienced. If Karen’s condition had been picked up early, she may well have lived a lot longer than she did. But Karen passed away from scleroderma and she left it far too late to go to the doctor and it was unfortunate for her that she passed away quite quickly with this condition. But had she have picked it up early, gone to the doctor, it could have been arrested much earlier.
So there you have it. Make sure you get checked out if in doubt. I mean you know your own body. If you have these feelings that something’s not right and if you do get fobbed off as I mentioned, you need to go somewhere else where you won’t get fobbed off. You may have to pay more and go to a naturopathic doctor or an integrative doctor to get the right kind of assessment. Because it can make a hell of a difference the earlier you get onto something rather than to leave it until it’s all falling to pieces.
So yeah, you should get onto it and as soon as you think something’s wrong. And also, demand the blood tests. We spoke about the tests, the antinuclear antibody, you might want to get a white blood cell count, red blood cell count, ask for immune markers, and inflammatory markers and that will give you an idea. And in some cases you can just pay yourself and get blood testing done privately. It might be a couple of hundred bucks, but it’d be well worth it for you to get that done.
When do you see a doctor for autoimmune disease? When do you know to book in, make an appointment? Is it worth going to the doctor?
Well, it’s definitely worth going to the doctor. Okay. Doctors are there for the rare and the unusual and what I call the 1% or 2% of people where they really need to be there for. Because 95% of people that go to the doctor, most of the stuff’s self-limiting, but autoimmune disease is not self-limiting. You need to get onto it. So if you notice an unusual symptom, like a strong weakness on a body part or a fever or the fatigue or something unusual, you need to make that appointment. And make sure also that you probe your doctor and say, “Look, I’ve got a suspicion it could be autoimmune disease. I want to get tested for that.” But be careful about going to Symptom Finder and websites like that because there are a lot of crap. You can’t just go to a symptom website and type in symptoms and get diagnosed. You need to see a professional person, right.
So getting testing done early on, especially blood testing done is very clever. And you know yourself inside if something’s not right, if it’s weird or unusual, especially if it’s something that goes on for a few weeks and you feel uncomfortable with it. And make sure you don’t take no for an answer from the GP. If you get fobbed off then you need to go to somewhere else. But it’s easy to put your head in the sand and forget about these symptoms, but they won’t go away. So it’s worth getting checked out and then it’s all on record, it’s all tracked. And make sure that you don’t take no for an answer if you get what I mean. All right.
So that’s it. When to see a doctor for autoimmune disease? If you feel something’s not right. And if guys are watching this, I find that women tend to go straight away to the doctor. Men tend to hang back a little bit until things get really gnarly, but they’re the ones who should be going in too, but it’s mainly women who get these autoimmune conditions. So go to Google, check things out, and then go in for the appointment and don’t delay.
How do you test for autoimmunity? What are the tests that you can, do? Do you only do medical tests or are there other kinds of tests that you can do?
There are many types of tests you can do for autoimmunity. It really depends what you’re trying to achieve, what you’re looking for. If you go to the doctor, for example, you can do antibody testing, antinuclear antibody, ANA, is a common test. So that will show if your immune system is starting to go haywire or starting to attack itself. That’s quite a good starting test often. There’s also RF, or rheumatoid factor, that’s a specific one for an antibody production for rheumatoid arthritis. So different autoimmune conditions may have specific markers, antibody markers that the doctor will check for. For celiac’s there are specific markers, for Sjogren’s there are specific markers, for example, so inflammation markers.
They’re also nonspecific ones like ESR or erythrocyte sedimentation rate. ESR is a common one just to sort of gauge how the disease is going, if the person is inflaming a bit here or there or if it’s dropping off. So often through treatment phases, the doctor can see if you’re in remission or if the disease is powering ahead through studies like ESR.
They’re also more highly specialized kinds of studies called cytokine studies where doctors can look more specifically at proteins that had been produced by white blood cells in response to inflammation, and these are called, for example, interleukin studies or tumor necrosis factor studies. These are more highly specialized and advanced tests that some doctors may perform or specialists.
But there are plenty of other tests you can do. For example, you could also do stool testing, all right. Now stool testing is going to give you a great idea on the health of the microbiome. It’s going to show you if there’s any dysbiotic flora that need cleaning up, any bad bacteria or any bad yeast numbers. It’ll also show you if there’s inflammation in the gut and what the status of your immune system is like in your digestive system. And that’s called a comprehensive stool analysis or comprehensive digestive stool analysis.
So Doctor’s Data in Chicago do a new test now called the GI360, which I think is fantastic. In my opinion, every autoimmune patient would best to do a stool test to determine the health of their gut and then make some changes, improve the function of their gut to improve their immune status. That’s the whole idea of doing that.
So hair analysis is another test, for example, small samples of the hair from the nape of the neck to see if there’s any toxic compounds in the body. Because remember, toxins can also be a big trigger.
There’s also adrenal testing you can do, especially if you suffer from stress or have had post traumatic stress disorder or have had a really gnarly kind of a lifestyle of something bad’s happened or if you think that you’re the type of person that needs assessing.
You can do salivary cortisol testing to determine where your stress responses are to see if you’re in fight or flight predominantly or if you’re more in the rest and digest.
But you need to see a naturopathic doctor or integrative doctor and discuss with her or him the applicability of these tests and what can be done. But getting testing done early on is clever because it’ll give you a baseline. And then having testing done regularly at intervals to see in which direction you’re going.
It’s pretty hard to go anywhere these days without Google maps or things like that. And in my opinion, without testing, it’s like the dark ages without mobile phones.
What are some of the symptoms people usually get? Well, earlier in the piece, it’s actually really hard to pick what is autoimmunity and what isn’t because everything’s so vague. Everything is vague. What you will ll often find is there’ll be fatigue, some tiredness. It could also be some low grade aching or pain in the joints or in the muscles, especially things like hands and feet. They’re could be some slight feeling that you think, “Something’s not right there.”
Another key thing to look for is if you injure yourself, like bump your foot or will have a fall or something like that, and then it doesn’t quite heal. It just stays there and it’s painful and painful and painful. I’ve had this with many patients over the years where someone bumped their foot and then three months later there’s still a low grade pain there and it’s not coming right.
So, you know yourself when something’s not right and that’s when it’s time to get checked out. And if you don’t get a satisfactory explanation from your doctor, you need to go to another doctor, okay? But my recommendation is to go to someone preferably who’s integrated. So he’s not just purely a medical doctor, but someone who could integrate medicine with natural medicine. So, this could be a naturopathic doctor or a GP who has an interest in this kind of work that we do because he or she is more likely to explore you a little bit more in depth. Have a look at your lifestyle, look at your diet, make some recommendations and maybe do some advanced testing that’s not necessarily kosher with the medical establishment.
Many tests that we do here, we used to do in our clinic. We’re laughed at by mainstream GPs. But you’ll be surprised how many GPs I’ve seen as patients over the years, had one of the tests done and told me to keep my mouth shut. I’ve seen lots of doctors and specialists that need the test, pediatrician, psychologist, psychiatrists, all kinds of people where the drugs didn’t work anymore. All right? So, remember there’s always options you’ve got, but the symptoms in the early onset can be very vague and this is what will make your doctor send you home with an aspirin and say, “Give me a call in the morning when it’s all better.”
So, don’t be alarmed if that happens because it’s common. And sometimes it’s very difficult to pick up an autoimmune disease, sometimes for a few years until it’s well established. But that doesn’t stop you from going to a few people to get a few opinions and maybe some testing. If you’ve got some issues with your gut, you could do some stool testing, for example, to see what state your gut is and get it up to a higher level.
So, make sure that you see the doctor and ask the right questions and get checked out. Stay tuned, we’re going to go further with autoimmune disease. We’ll talk about what tests are available and things like that in the next video. But just remember nondescript, vague, fatigue, maybe a low grade fever. There can be another one for some people as their immune system goes a bit funny. They could be a bit sweaty or hot or think, “Well, it’s not quite right.” It’s actually winter time I’m feeling a bit sweaty here in bed at night. I’m throwing the covers off.”
We’re going to talk about the causes, or what I believe are the likely causes of autoimmune disease, because according to medicine, there is no known cause, or no likely cause. But there’s an increasingly growing consensus that it could be bacterial or viral problem. So if you think about our bodies, there are billions of bacteria in our bodies, and we have to keep our bodies, of course, in good condition, and our immune system does a marvelous job of doing that. But, occasionally, like anything, it’s going to go crazy, and it’s going to attack what it shouldn’t be attacking. But if you think about it logically, if you keep your digestive system in great shape, improve the gut so there’s no leakiness there, so you’re not going to get bacterial translocation from the intestine through to the circulatory system, you’ve got a less chance of developing antibodies.
I believe, where I’m sitting, that many, not all, but many cases of autoimmune disease come from faulty eating, faulty lifestyle. And people, for example, that I know eat lots of white bread with jam every day for breakfast. They’ll have a cup of tea or coffee with two or three spoons of white sugar in there. Then they’ll have some donuts around 11 o’clock. So, when you’re feeding your gut, basically, crap like that, day in, day out, you’re developing a really crappy network. You’re developing a really crappy microbiome. You’re allowing the gut to become more permeable, more weak, more sick. And of course, this is a great breeding ground for autoimmunity.
So in years to come, doctors will understand this principle, that it all boils down to keeping the microbiome in top, top shape by eating the right kind of food, living the right kind of lifestyle. Simple, but not so simple, often, to put into practice. But this, in my opinion, is the majority of causes of these common autoimmune diseases. It’s bacterial translocation. I’ve got this interesting book here, and I’ve got many other books I can show you like this, Treatment In General Practice. In fact, I’ve got a feeling this came out of one of the garbage bins that I was emptying when I was at a dump, when I used to tip bins. And I tipped the bin for a doctor once. I think an old doctor who passed away. And there was all these medical books in it. So, of course, I found some, and this is a beauty, this one.
This one’s from 1936. Now I’ve got the chapter open on rheumatoid arthritis here, and it says here, achlorhydria is present in 20% of cases. So that’s no stomach acid, basically. And in such cases, a chronic intestinal infection is highly likely. And in fact, the gallbladder is probably more common than is usually realized. Removal of bile through the duodenal tube may show that the gallbladder is a carrier of streptococci bacteria, though the patient has no definitive symptoms. It may be necessary to remove a number of diseased teeth. This should be done gradually to avoid a risk of violent reaction in the joints. Isn’t that amazing?
There’s actually another section here also on another condition, fibrositis, which today we call fibromyalgia, I believe. And here also it talks about a large group of cases can be traced to the presence of focal infection, both teeth and tonsils are generally highly suspect. So if you speak with your dentist, you’ll be actually quite shocked at how many cases the dentist will report to you of people with autoimmune disease, with very bad teeth. It goes on to talk about here, again, the focus of infection, which is often overlooked.
So, doctors in those days, in the 30s, they knew medicine. They knew medicine very well, just like they know medicine today. They’ve seen thousands of patients. But in those days they didn’t have big pharma on their back. They didn’t have huge, big establishments controlling how they worked, to the degree where everything is like anally scrutinized now. So doctors worked a lot more by empirical observation, meaning they didn’t have large databases or computer knowledge to throw around the globe. There was no internet, no computers, there was nothing back then. There was just pen and paper basically, and meetings, where doctors would go to conferences and meetings like we do today, and they would discuss things. And this is how people learned information, through empirical observation, through observing, observing, observing.
I’ve observed cases for over 30 years. I’ve seen a massive connection between poor gut function and autoimmunity, and it’s about blooming time the medical establishment sat back and took note of what they also likely know to be the cause of many of these cases. A dysfunctional gut, a dysfunctional lifestyle. All this ocean of drugs that we’re making and prescribing to people, in my opinion, it’s generally needless if the causes are addressed properly. The faulty diet, the faulty gut, and the faulty lifestyle. If these things are fixed up early in the piece, it could save an incredible amount of misery, and also a huge amount of cost over time.But are bacteria the only cause? Not really. Yeasts are implicated in many cases of autoimmunity. You can actually do a Google search and find out how candida is implicated in autoimmunity. Bacteria, though, tend to lead the pack, but viruses also have been implicated. This Guillain virus, for example, Coxsackie virus. There are many sort of viruses that are involved with autoimmunity. And remember, also, it’s the chemicals, it’s the plastics, it’s the sprays, it’s the poisons. It could also be Monsanto’s glyphosate. So, the less chemicals you use in the house, the more likely you’re going to stay healthier for a longer period of time, than increasing the amount of chemicals that we use.So if we reiterate, look back, hormones can play a role, but we’re not quite sure. Genetics are likely part of the cause. But experts say it’s genetic plus environmental, usually conjoined, that causes the big problem. So chemicals, poor bacteria, poor diets. And there’s one thing that we forgot to talk about, and that’s high stress. I just read an interesting study showing that most people with serious autoimmune disease have got very high cortisol levels. So they’re highly stressed out people. So you can put 10 people in a room and expose them all to the same stress. Each person will react differently. One person will have serious post-traumatic stress disorder from that event. Another one will walk away and then happily go and have a hamburger and fall asleep later and have no problem with it. So no two people react to the same stressor. But we all tend to react the same towards diet. So that’s why it’s important to keep the diet in top shape all the time, as much as you can, and do a regular stool test to keep that gut in tip-top shape, so you prevent things like bowel disease happening, which lead you to autoimmune disease. />Remember, you don’t just wake up one day and have autoimmune disease. It’s like anything else in your life. It happens slowly, slowly over a period of time, and then all of a sudden it bites you in the butt. But you knew something was wrong, but you didn’t do anything about it. And that’s why it’s important to address the causes, well, well before you start looking at the treatments. I hope this gives you a bit of useful information.