March is National Autoimmune Disease Awareness Month. My music-themed post title today has me back to Rush (you’ll see them a lot with me) with their song “The Enemy Within” from their 1984 album, Grace Under Pressure. The song title pretty well sums up autoimmune diseases. The album title is also an apt metaphor for living with and managing autoimmune diseases.
So, what exactly is an autoimmune disease? Well, it’s basically when your own body attacks and damages its own cells and tissue – the literal enemy within. There’s still a lot not known about why some people’s bodies do this. In most of these autoimmune diseases there is a genetic component, but there is also usually an outside trigger that kicks this response into gear.
Type 1 diabetes is an autoimmune disease. (For the record, Type 2 is not.) Your body can start producing antibodies getting ready to do battle up to roughly 10 years before the onset of the actual disease – in this case, type 1 diabetes. My two sons were enrolled in a TrialNet study testing for those antibodies. All my children were eligible to participate as they have me – a parent with type 1 diabetes. My boys now have their sister and me. They have so far come up negative, thankfully, but if they were positive, they could enroll in the actual trial. you can read more about that here: https://www.trialnet.org/our-research/risk-screening
In the case of type 1 diabetes, your body decides the cells that make insulin are invaders and starts attacking them. We need insulin to survive, so this is a big deal – understatement of the century. You can’t stop this process once it starts (at least so far) and I’m convinced that’s why a cure is so difficult – scientists can figure out how to get our bodies to produce those cells again, but can’t figure out how to stop our bodies from destroying them eventually. As for those triggers, my personal feeling is that the outside triggers are unique to each individual making it impossible to nail down one culprit as in the case of Celiac disease (see below). I wouldn’t want to take immunosuppressant drugs forever either – the side effects are awful. It’s a case of the devil you know. There isn’t a current transplant plan available to us anyway, so the point is kinda moot.
Autoimmune diseases are a social group too. Hey! Let’s party! When one drops in, it often gets lonely and calls up a friend or two to join it. In my case, hypothyroid, which is an underactive thyroid, and for my daughter, both hypothyroid and Celiac disease – that one means that she cannot eat gluten as her body will damage her intestines in response to the gluten. She and I both take insulin to manage autoimmune disease numero uno – type 1 diabetes. We both also take Synthroid – a thyroid replacement drug to manage hypothyroid. My daughter does not eat anything containing gluten and her antibodies on that front are all back to normal, but that doesn’t mean she’s cured. She can’t eat gluten ever or the whole thing starts all over again.
On a somewhat controversial note, I’ll state my stance on purveyors of so-called “natural” means of curing all sorts of autoimmune diseases. Cinnamon and turmeric do not cure type 1 diabetes. Sure they’re great additives and I’m sure have some anti-inflammatory and other benefits, but understand my type 1 diabetes was not caused by any lack of anything or over indulgence of anything in my diet. No supplement or herb will cure me or my daughter. If we do not inject insulin, we will die. Plain and simple. I know plenty of people tout “natural” methods to treat thyroid issues as well, but I can’t stress enough the hell I went through for a good year when hypothyroid hit me. I gained weight despite exercising and starving myself like an idiot. My skin was so dry. My hair was falling out. I was so tired all the time. I was depressed because no doctor would take me seriously since my results were always within the normal range. Yes, but at the very high end of normal. So, technically normal but c’mon! If, for example, the normal reference range is 1 to 15 and my results are consistently 14.75 – really?! You don’t want to take a closer look at what’s going on with me? Lazy doctors, in my opinion. When one wonderful endocrinologist finally decided to treat my symptoms, I felt better almost immediately once I started taking Synthroid, a brand name of levothyroxine that replaced my missing thyroid hormones. My symptoms all went away and I was myself again.
To be clear, I don’t mean to turn this into a western medicine vs. alternative medicine pitch either. I’m actually a very big proponent of lots of alternative medicine, acupuncture being one I think is incredibly beneficial. So, if you use herbs, spices, garlic, weird teas, whatever and they work for you, terrific. They’re just not my bag, baby and in some cases, particularly where T1D is concerned, they are extremely dangerous.
Autoimmune diseases are so hard to combat, as you are battling your own body. I like to joke that my pancreas unfriended and blocked me. I’m not wrong though. It’s taking up space rent free, the lazy lout!
Some other autoimmune diseases include: rheumatoid arthritis (RA), psoriasis, multiple sclerosis, lupus, inflammatory bowel disease, and Addison’s disease. You can read more about all these diseases, the risk factors and treatments for them by visiting The America Autoimmune Related Diseases Association site at https://www.aarda.org
