Medical Misinformation | Part 4

Top 10 Myths About Autoimmune Disease


Posted in

Dr. Aaron Hartman

April 22, 2024

Top 10 Myths About Autoimmune Disease

At RIFM, we treat autoimmune issues every day (which leads right into our first myth). In this article, I’d like to clear up some common myths I hear regarding autoimmune disease.

Autoimmune Myths


Summary

From recognizing the prevalence of these conditions to understanding the integral role of lifestyle factors such as diet and stress management, it's clear that education and early intervention can drastically alter outcomes. Armed with accurate information and the right strategies, individuals can take meaningful steps toward managing their autoimmune conditions and enhancing their overall well-being.


Further Reading

POTS

What It Really Is & Why It Happens
Patrick Ussher

Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia Syndrome, also known as POTS, is a collection of symptoms that describes not disease but a patient's condition. Only five years ago this entity was thought to be psychiatric, but now we're understanding the under lying causes are many. Ten to twenty percent of POTS is autoimmune. Another percentage of POTS deals with dysregulation of the nervous system between the “fight or flight and the weed and feed system”, known as the autonomic nervous system. There's also a form of POTS overdrive of the adrenaline or adrenergic system. In this book, the author dives into one of these paradigms dealing with the traumatized brain and how that can cause be one of the causes of POTS. The author dives into brain retraining, also known as dynamic neural retraining, and how this can be used as a treatment modality. Ultimately, there are many syndromes like POTS that need to have many different modalities and many different treatments in order to get patients better. This book deals with one of the causes of POTS and how a functional medicine practitioner would look at someone who has POTS.

The Autoimmune Solution

Prevent and Reverse the Full Spectrum of Inflammatory Symptoms and Diseases
Amy Myers MD

In her book, Dr. Myers describes her own battle with Grave’s Disease and her journey that resulted in the resolution of her own autoimmune illness. She outlines the Functional Medicine approach and summarizes the key steps she uses in her practice to address autoimmunity. The audiobook comes with a 146-page guide that includes recipes and reviews the basic concepts in the book. This guide is very useful. This book, as well as Dr. Bloom’s, are general works that address autoimmune diseases and are not all-inclusive. Autoimmunity is a very complex topic and difficult to distill into one concise book.

The Immune System Recovery Plan

A Doctor's 4-Step Program to Treat Autoimmune Disease
Susan Blum MD

This is an overall general survey of the functional medicine approach to addressing autoimmune issues. Dr. Blum uses a modified 5R approach (actually a four-prong approach) in her book. This book, as well as Dr. Meyer’s, are general works that address autoimmune diseases but are not all-inclusive. Autoimmunity is a very complex topic and difficult to distill into one concise book.

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