Are you pre-autoimmune?
Unfortunately, autoimmunity tends to like company. In other words: autoimmunity begets more autoimmunity. Learn why it’s important to rid your body of chronic inflammation as early as you can and what signs to look for!
Autoimmunity likes company…
Multiple autoimmune syndrome (or MAS) is a combination of at least 3 autoimmune diseases in one individual… sounds surprising right? Believe it or not, I see this all the time in even young patients. Even in myself, I was diagnosed with Celiac disease (an autoimmune response to gluten) years before my Lupus diagnosis. In fact, at least a quarter of people with autoimmunity go on to develop additional autoimmune disease(s).
Autoimmunity doesn’t just appear one day…
Did you know it takes an average of about half a decade after symptoms begin before autommunity is diagnosed? And most of these patients have seen numerous doctors throughout this span. Most of them have heard over and over that “nothing is wrong” or “it’s probably all just stress”. Needless to say, they’re typically exhausted.
What if I told you that there are fairly predictable phases autoimmune patient goes through – and that this typically begins years before they are formally diagnosed? And within those phases, there are ways to intervene and possibly prevent the disease from ever fully progressing?
Well, for most people, auto-antibodies (immune complexes our bodies create that get confused and attack self-tissue rather than enemies like infection), form years before true tissue damage occurs. Later, nonspecific inflammation occurs and people start feeling like crud. In this time period, you may go to the doctor and tell them you don’t feel well, and they may have no answers because you don’t yet “meet criteria” for a formal diagnosis. This is most often when I see my patients. The final stage is clinical autoimmune disease—when auto-antibodies know exactly where and what they are targeting, and tissue destruction begins.
Signs and symptoms – is this you?
Nonspecific inflammation and poor immune tolerance can present differently in everyone. The most common symptoms I see are fatigue, joint pain, brain fog, digestive complaints, fertility concerns, abnormal menstrual cycle, nutrient deficiencies and many, many others. The biggest thing I hear though? Something has changed. I don’t feel like I used to. I think something is going on with my body.
Believe me when I say: our bodies are so intelligent. My biggest piece of advice to my patients is to truly trust their body when it is sending messages. If you believe that something is wrong, find a doctor who will listen and take the time to understand how to translate the signals your body is sending, and get you thriving again. Advocating for yourself like this might mean you never have to deal with one of these crummy illnesses to begin with, because we catch things when they are a little bit off rather than in complete destruction.
Listen to your body when it whispers, or it will keep getting louder and louder, until the signs are impossible to ignore.
As always, thanks for listening y’all.
Dr. Erin
