Autoimmune and Family History

Have You Been Experiencing:

• Fatigue?
• Headaches?
• Joint Pain?
• Overall discomfort?

For most individuals experiencing symptoms,  health care providers will run a few tests. For the most part, these tests come back normal or inconclusive. The patient is usually relieved, but not satisfied as they are still experiencing symptoms. The truth of the matter is, most tests practitioners run on patients are basic.

What Does That Mean?

It means that they are checking your levels and ruling out issues based on standard testing, but they are not diving deep into the cause of the symptom itself. Most individuals have a family history of one or more autoimmune diseases. An autoimmune disease is when the body misidentifies its own cells as a foreign body leading them to attack. These diseases can be triggered at any point in one’s life.

So What Do I Do Now?

Due to family history,  an ANA test can be run. Most of the time for patients still experiencing symptoms after the standard tests came back negative, the ANA comes back positive. However, a positive test does not always mean answers. This test can provide useful information but does not include a definitive answer as to what kind of autoimmunity a patient may have.

Using A Functional Approach

In modern/traditional medicine, most practitioners will suggest the patient is fine and that there is nothing to treat until they have been diagnosed. However, by using a more naturopathic and holistic approach, integrative practitioners can take these symptoms and use them to the patient’s advantage to help avoid a full-blown diagnosis.  The main reason this is effective is due to the fact that individuals do not just wake up one day with a new disease, but rather there are steps progressing in the background that eventually build up to a diagnosis if not treated.

Uncovering the underlying issue and using this stage in someone’s life as an opportunity to improve their quality of living is what functional medicine revolves around. By combining symptoms, previous lab results, and the patients declining quality of life, testing that relates to triggers of autoimmunity can be conducted. These tests will provide insightful information allowing the practitioner to not only treat the symptom but more importantly, to treat the cause.

Testing

There are multiple factors, including environmental that cause an autoimmune response to start to express. There are certain markers in the body that will shift before the onset of the autoimmune disease in which the environmental triggers will be shown.

Many labs are equipt to test for these markers and use top of the line technology. Some tests that evaluate these triggers that contribute to the progression of autoimmunity are:

The Gut Zoomerfrom Vibrant Wellness:The Gut Zoomer provides information and patient potential risks for intestinal permeability, IBS & IBD, SIBO, celiac, MS, obesity, diabetes, nutrition, viruses, fungal or yeast species, worm species, bile acids, SCFAs and more

The Food Sensitivity Panel from Vibrant Wellness:This test from Vibrant Wellness recognizes the specific antibody-to-antigen responses in commonly ingested foods. This panel tests for IgG and IgA sensitivity to the food antigens. This test is beneficial so patients do not have to an elimination diet, but rather have the test remove the guesswork and let results tell them what foods cause their body inflammation.

Dietary Antigen Test Plus from Dunwoody Labs:  This specific test from Dunwoody Labs allows the health care provider to see if there is an increased antibody response to food. Often times, the antibodies this screens for attack the body’s tissue leading to more autoimmune symptoms. This test looks at 4 separate antibody types IgE, IgG4, Total IgG, IgA, and complement.

Oxidative Stress Test from Dunwoody Labs:If the body is under large amounts of stress, this will cause an increase in the activity of T-Cells, thus keeping the body out of balance.

Why Would I Want / Need This?

Preventative medicine provides the ability to keep up with, if not improve a patient’s quality of life while decreasing or avoiding the hard prescription medicine! By treating the underlying cause and not just masking the symptom, it allows individuals to truly feel better.

The number of individuals diagnosed with a disease that could have been prevented should earlier steps have been taken, is on the rise while their quality of life is declining. Feeling good should not be a delicacy, but rather a normal standard. With the use of integrative medicine, many grandparents will be able to play hide and seek and tag with their grandchildren, parents will be able to get through the day without as much fatigue and headaches, and children will be able to play, focus, and learn with fewer belly aches no matter the hour of the day. Integrative medicine not only utilizes tests to guide patients in the right direction but also gives patients tools and further educates them on exercise and nutrition components that will help prevent inflammation and stimulate good bacteria in their bodies to grow. – Kenna Vaughn, Senior Health Coach

*The scope of our information is limited to chiropractic, musculoskeletal, and nervous health issues or functional medicine articles, topics, and discussions. We use functional health protocols to treat injuries or disorders of the musculoskeletal system. Our office has made a reasonable attempt to provide supportive citations and has identified the relevant research study or studies supporting our posts. We also make copies of supporting research studies available to the board and or the public upon request. To further discuss the subject matter above, please feel free to ask Dr. Alex Jimenez or contact us at 915-850-0900.

Resources:

“Basic Oxidative Stress.” Dunwoody Labs, 20 July 2018, www.dunwoodylabs.com/index.php/ox-stress/.

Burdette, Cheryl. “Is There Such Thing as Being Pre-Autoimmune.” 3 Dec. 2019.

“Food Sensitivity.” Vibrant Wellness, www.vibrant-wellness.com/tests/food-sensitivity/.

“GI Microbial Assay Plus.” Diagnostic Solutions Laboratory, 8 Nov. 2019, www.diagnosticsolutionslab.com/tests/gi-map.

“Gut Zoomer.” Vibrant Wellness, www.vibrant-wellness.com/tests/gut-zoomer/.

“588 Dietary Antigen A, G, E, and C.” Dunwoody Labs, 17 Jan. 2019, www.dunwoodylabs.com/index.php/dietary-antigen-and-environmental-allergen-exposure-profiles/.