If you, like myself and 50 million other Americans (or 20% of the U.S. population) have been diagnosed with an autoimmune disorder, take heart.
In many causes, it is possible to reverse, heal or halt autoimmune disorder before it progresses even further.
Considering you likely have a lifespan up to a decade shorter than someone without autoimmune disease, taking action to heal your condition should most certainly be one of your top priorities.
The problem is, we are all suffering from information overload these days.
We’re bombarded by thousands of wellness bloggers claiming that their new smoothie recipe is the magic answer and diet gurus promising their new way of eating only bananas will bring you back to health, and random people you’ve never heard of promising to cure you if you only buy their e-book with zero reviews for $19.99.
Add that to the fact you’re not getting any real answers from your doctor, your fatigue is relentless and you’re seriously struggling to keep up with family responsibilities, work, and chaotic world events, it’s no wonder you get overwhelmed and say ‘screw it, I’m ordering a pizza’. (Guilty!)
I have been dealing with Hashimoto’s disease for over eight years (as well as two other conditions that researchers now believe to be autoimmune-based), so I’m intimately familiar with your pain. Living abroad has often complicated my healing journey, leaving me to experiment on myself with supplements and diet fads due to a surplus of unhelpful doctors.
Luckily, the national discourse and scientific research on autoimmune disorder is constantly growing, with real experts (read: those whose methods are genuinely effective and grounded in science) emerging all the time.
I’m so passionate about this subject that I decided to reach out to ten of the world’s top experts on autoimmune disease to find out their number one tip for those looking to heal their autoimmune disorder, and I truly believe their answers can start you on a great path towards healing.
Here are the top 10 tips from world experts on healing autoimmune disorder:
As some of the expert tips had to be shortened to fit in the infographic, here are the unfiltered versions for you:
1. Collaborate with Yourself
When you are at war with yourself there is no winner. Autoimmune disease is you fighting you. Just as you have to eliminate inflammatory foods such as gluten, sugar, dairy, alcohol, caffeine, and soy from your diet, eliminate inflammatory language that tears you down.
Get into a collaborative relationship with yourself by healing past trauma and changing your relationship with daily life stress. Once you are no longer attacking yourself your immune system can stop attacking you.
By: Dr. Keesha Ewers
2. Do an Elimination Diet
Doing an elimination is my gold standard in discovering your individual food intolerances so you can understand what foods to avoid and which foods help your body to thrive. Since food can either perpetuate disease or fuel healing this is an important first step in putting autoimmune symptoms in remission.’
By: Dr. Will Cole
3. Improve Sleep Quality
Sleep has universal healing. Be sure your sleeping area is in complete darkness to get the best quality sleep. Avoid electronics before bed, or block the blue and green spectrum with TrueDark Twilight glasses.
By: Jenna Keane, COO, TrueDark
4. Eliminate Grains
Eliminate all grain from your diet. It might just save your life.
5. Decrease Your Total Toxic Burden
Start with the basics to decrease total toxic burden: Clean Air, Clean Water, Clean Food. Make sure your home has an air filtration system that will filter both particulate matter and VOCs, make sure you are drinking purified or mineral/spring water from clean source and no plastic water bottles. Eat organic, non-GMO, gluten-free, dairy-free and sugar-free diet as much as possible.
6. Optimize Your Lifestyle
Your diet and lifestyle play an enormous role in the level of inflammation in your body. Eat real food, drink clean, filtered water and work to reduce stress, prioritize sleep and focus on joy and gratitude. Eat your meals in an 8 hour eating window each day and take 5 days every other month and do a 5 day water and salt fast.
7. Change Your Environment
The body isn’t making a mistake, it is being overwhelmed and tricked, but doing everything it can in the environment it is in. The best long-term strategy is to change the environment and the three that we have are in our guts, in our thoughts and relationships, and the world outside of us.
8. Peak at Your Poo
Peak at your poo it’s the #1 product you produce. It says everything about you and defines your state of health. Learn what it says and become the best version of you.
By: Dr. Marisol Teijeiro, Queen of the Thrones
9. Practice Gratitude
Begin and end every day with gratitude. List the Top 10 things you are grateful for. When you have an Autoimmune condition and your body is full of disease, it’s easy to be consumed with fatigue, pain, fear, anger, and betrayal. A mindset of gratitude will help you to feel better about yourself and unleash your inner fortitude every day.
By: Holly Bertone, CNHP, PMP and founder of Pink Fortitude
10. Never Give Up
Never give up! Autoimmune disease is totally reversible – I see it every single day in my private practice. All you need is someone who will listen deeply to your story, investigate to find root causes of what’s going on inside your body, order the correct specialty laboratory testing, and guide you through a step-by-step framework to healing your body fully, a framework specific to you and only you, no one-size-fits-all supplements/detoxes/or nutrition plans!
If you go to a practitioner who has you on umpteen supplements with no real answers, and months out to see you next, you need to find another practitioner – supplements and diet are not the only answers, there is much much more to the story.
By: Maggie Berghoff, Celebrity Health Expert
As a fellow sufferer of an autoimmune disorder my heart goes out to you, but know that you are not alone and that the suffering can end.
Please find a doctor that practices integrative, functional or naturopathic medicine, or at least a health practitioner that is fully up-to-date with the latest research on autoimmune disorders.
The above experts are a great place to start, especially if you live in a small town where there are no autoimmune specialists. In the meantime, I do hope these tips help you on your own path to healing your autoimmune disorder!
