What Is Autoimmune Disease and Are You One of 23 Million Americans Who Has An Autoimmune Disorder?

When I tell people that I used natural healing to cure the symptoms of my autoimmune disease, the questio
I get asked most often is “What is autoimmune disease?”

Even though The American Autoimmune Related Diseases Association classifies more than 100 illnesses, chronic conditions, and dis-eases as autoimmune disorders, and the National Institute of Health estimates that there are more than 23 millio
Americans suffering from some type of autoimmune disease, I’m surprised to find out how many people don’t know what an autoimmune disorder is. Even people who have one sometimes don’t know what an autoimmune disorder is!

What Is “Autoimmune Disease?”

An autoimmune “dis-ease” occurs when our body’s disease-fighting cells mistakenly attack healthy cells. Why would our body’s own immune system do such a thing? Many scientists now believe that our environment is causing the increase in autoimmune diseases. The average American exposed to as many as 80,000 common manmade chemicals on a daily basis and in response to that our immune systems are going into overdrive. Our warrior immunity cells are so inundated with toxins, they begin to shoot at everything because they can’t tell a friend from an enemy any more.

How I imagine the immune system is like an invisible force field. From the moment of our conception a force field of immunity is evolving. As we move through life our immunity force field is exposed to natural colds, flus, germs, bacteria and viruses such as mononucleosis, the mumps, measles, Epstein bar, E. coli, salmonella and many other common exposures. The immune system force field is designed to grow and strengthen from these exposures. The problem now is that there are too many exposures and the immune system force field is in constant hyper alert.

Why Are Autoimmune Diseases So Epidemic in the U.S.?

When we slather lotions on our skin, shampoo our hair, spray down our kitchen counters, sprinkle flavorings on our food, wash our clothes, or fill our gas tanks, we are breathing in chemicals. Never before in the history of humankind have we been inundated with such a large number or amount of toxins.

In a 2005 study*, researchers found 287 industrial chemicals, including pesticides, phthalates, dioxins, flame retardants, and the breakdown chemicals of Teflon, in the fetal cord blood of ten newbo
s from around the country. These common chemicals were transmitted to the infants by their mothers, who had been exposed to the chemicals before and during pregnancy. Our immunity force fields are under attack before we even begin.

Illnesses, Chronic Conditions, Disorders, and Diseases Connected to Autoimmunity Dysfunctions

People are often familiar with some of the most common autoimmune diseases like Crohn’s, Graves’ disease, Diabetes, Multiple sclerosis, Psoriasis, and Lupus without even knowing that they are autoimmune diseases. Here’s a list of some of the most common illnesses, chronic conditions, disorders, and diseases that are categorized as autoimmune dysfunctions:

• Addison’s disease
• Cardiomyopathy
• Celiac disease
• Crohn’s disease
• Dermatomyositis
• Endometriosis
• Graves’ disease
• Guillain-Barre syndrome
• Hashimoto’s encephalitis
• Hashimoto’s thyroiditis
• Herpes gestationis
• Insulin-dependent diabetes (type1) - Interstitial cystitis
• Juvenile arthritis
• Juvenile diabetes
• Kawasaki syndrome
• Lupus (SLE) - Lyme disease, chronic
• Meniere’s disease
• Multiple sclerosis
• Myasthenia gravis
• Narcolepsy
• Optic neuritis
• Palindromic rheumatism
• Polymyositis
• Progesterone dermatitis
• Psoriasis
• Psoriatic arthritis
• Idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis
• Reflex sympathetic dystrophy
• Reiter’s syndrome
• Restless legs syndrome
• Rheumatic fever
• Rheumatoid arthritis
• Sarcoidosis
• Scleritis
• Scleroderma
• Vasculitis

And that’s just he list of the well-known ones. There are more!

So what’s the natural healing approach if you have autoimmune dis-ease? The answer for me was to restore balance to my immune system so that the natural healing processes of the body could do what they were designed to do. This means that I had to clean the bad stuff out and get the good stuff in my body.

I started living a Real Food Life and literally cooked my way out of my autoimmune disease. And now that I’m the healthiest I’ve been since my childhood, I’m dedicated to educating others about what autoimmune disease is and how natural healing strategies can help them be free of it. it’s all part of paying my good health forward.