Dr. Aimee Duffy: Unlocking Autoimmune Diseases: Origins & Solutions
Founder & Medical Director, Carolina Integrative Medicine
#autoimmunedisease #aimeeduffymd #healthtips
Autoimmune diseases are on the rise, but many people don’t know what they are. Autoimmune diseases can develop for a variety of reasons, and scientists are still trying to figure out all of them. But we do know that some things can increase your risk of developing one
Watch now and listen to what Dr. Duffy says about Auto Immune disease!
Dr. Duffy utilizes the latest technology in an integrative manner through sophisticated testing and treatment strategies. Her goal is to develop a partnership with her patients empowering them to maximize their vitality and improve their quality of life. The team at Carolina Integrative Medicine is passionate about mentoring men and women who are willing to take the steps necessary to achieve optimal, life-long health.
Full Transcript
Introduction to autoimmune disease 0:00
Hey, this is Dr. Duffy. I get asked all the time if I treat autoimmune diseases or do I have an auto immune disease? Have you ever wondered if you have a auto-immune disease and what is autoimmune disease in the first place? We're going to chat about that just a little bit today. Let's talk about what are some auto immunes things and we know are pretty common ones like rheumatoid arthritis and lupus and Hashimoto's and there are
Common autoimmune conditions 0:24
somethings that part as readily recognizes autoimmune disease like endometriosis and maybe even type 1 diabetes, sometimes even Type 2 diabetes psoriasis, psoriatic arthritis, any kind of rashes, and any funny weird thing. And so what happens is that When your body starts recognizing some foreign substance, and oftentimes it comes from your gut, so we always talk about autoimmune disease coming from our gut and we talk leaky gut. And there are ways to actually measure leky gut it is real. What happens is that these foreign things, whether they're bacteria or chemicals, get through your guts into your bloodstream.
How leaky gut can trigger autoimmunity 0:58
And then your body gets on this high alert and it starts reacting to everything because it's trying to protect you. And, then, it may recognize something in your own body that seems very similar or familiar to something that it is reacting in to your gut. It starts to react to itself, and that's what the autoimmune comes from. You could have a predisposition to auto-immune disease from a family member or something like that, but it usually comes with two triggers. Whether you have family predisposition, you also have to have something going on in you gut and have leaky gut, Traditionally, medicine for autoimmune disease is often the treatment for autoimmune is affecting your immune system.
So basically it's saying stop treating, stop reacting, and we're going to suppress your system, that's what most medications for Autoimmune Disease are. However, our goal is to say, why is your body doing that? What is it reacting to? And let's heal it from within. That's a lot of what we do when I treat or work with patients who have auto immune disease.
Symptoms and early warning signs 1:51
What are some signs that you might have an auto-immune disease that may not recognize? You may have these signs and symptoms and you go get tested or you ask to be tested, but You're not bad enough yet. You don't have the obvious positive test. And so your tests are normal, but yet you still feel really bad. So there's a lot of signs that can happen before you actually officially have an autoimmune disease. So what most people are experiencing is pain, inflammation, joint pain headaches, and fatigue.
Chronic fatigue is a very common one. You can have funny rashes that happen. So you may get reactions to things that you didn't get reaction to before. Those are very commonly things we see with autoimmune. And then what happens is that the stress on your system that's coming from all this hyper-reactivity all the time really starts wearing down your adrenals because your adrenal are there to help protect you and they want to kick out immune fighting things like cortisol. Have you ever got a cortisone shot in a shoulder or something like that?
Treatment approach and next steps 2:44
Your body makes cortisol when you're inflamed. So autoimmune disease is a big deal. It's real, but yet sometimes it's not severe enough to be treated. And we don't always want to use these immunosuppressing drugs that can have a lot of side effects. Although your immune system is suppressed and it may make your auto immune symptoms better, it affects your system. You're more likely to get sick. You have to test your liver all the time and then you have other issues that show up after that. So if you ever wondered or are wondering now if have an autoimmune disease or if some of these symptoms that go, huh, this kind of sounds like an automune thing, then reach out to us.
Let's get a pre-discovery call with you, see what's going on and let's attack what is going at the level of your gut where it's all starting to start healing from within so that you can have the best life ever and feel great.
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