One of the things that happened over time, in traditional medicine, is that their model for care has become governed by whether there exists pharmaceutical intervention. The purpose in obtaining a diagnosis is simply to administer medications to manage the symptoms. They may look at autoimmune conditions and believe that as long as they give the condition a Latin name, the investigation is over and they simply need to open the Merck Manual and prescribe the appropriate drug. If the person has Rheumatoid Arthritis, let’s try Tramadol, if the diagnosis is Multiple Sclerosis, our protocol may be Interferon; if the person is hypothyroid, we’re going for replacement hormones, and at first we don’t succeed, then try, try again.

Treat the CAUSE or just shut up and take your drug!

Success is measured by the suppression of symptoms not correcting the cause that is producing an effect. The population seems to be okay with this model: Give my symptoms a name and then drug them into oblivion. Unfortunately, we are going to discover that this type of mentality is leading us down the road of destruction. The question they really need to ask is why they became sick in the first place. The answer to this question for many suffering people may lie in the fact that they have an immune destruction against their tissue that, unless stopped, is continuously progressing and may ultimately cause death. We cannot be satisfied with symptom suppression while ignoring the cause; we must never settle for a treatment that does not address the reason the disease exists; and we must become our own advocates, studying and demanding that our healthcare practitioner ‘proves’ their cure with logical understanding of the process itself. 

Rick’s Story

Rick was diagnosed with Rheumatoid Arthritis in Spring 2005 at 39 years old after many years of doctor visits with different symptoms, mainly joint pain that moved from joint to joint with some episodes lasting weeks, others months.  He was very confused and angry, being an athlete in high school and college; this pain was now interfering with life goals. What he had learned was heartbreaking enough for him.  The three words he noticed to be associated with Rheumatoid Arthritis in whatever he read about it at that point were “incurable”, “deformation”, and “progressive”.

Like many men, Rick went into denial and kept his diagnosis to himself.  He quietly started on the medication his Rheumatologist prescribed but it made him feel nauseous and he slowly weaned himself off of them without returning to his specialist. He lived his life avoiding some of the things he loved most until one day in 2006 when his right knee swelled up to the size of a grapefruit. It was then that he decided to figure out an answer that would defy those three nasty words that rang through his head. Rick was driven by fear. He was a successful businessman and convinced that he was the one who cared most about HIS disease and if there was to be an answer found, then HE was the one to find it.

After finding a naturopathic practitioner who listed Rheumatoid Arthritis in her website with the immune system’s mechanism laid out in clear language, Rick started to ‘see the light’. He was on a plane the following week to start a process that would change his future for the better.

For Rick, it was, “Just common sense, I was between a rock and a hard place, I was really in a catch 22. I worked my whole life to enjoy golf, tennis, and living in my retirement years and all I could see was progressive, deforming arthritis or horrible side effects of drugs that didn’t even help very much. I mean… maybe they work for some people but I just felt stuck. It forced me to do my own search.”

The immune system is made up of white blood cells which make our neutrophils, monocytes, basophils, eosinophils, and lymphocytes. And when you look at the CBC on a blood panel, you'll see just the percentage of all these cells, your total white blood cells, neutrophils, monocytes, basophils, eosinophils, and lymphocytes. Those markers alone are not enough to help you understand what's going on in an autoimmune attack.

Many times, in the breakdown of these white blood cells, these markers or percentages may be totally normal. In order to assess an autoimmune disease, you have to do a lymphocyte panel – a separation of these into their various components.

The lymphocyte panel will measure the total percentage of T cells, the total percentage of T helper cells, regulatory cells, suppressor cells, cytotoxic T cells, B cells, and natural killer cells. Then, you can get a better idea of what's going on with the immune response in how it is responding to destroy foreign invaders, i.e. antigens.

The joint capsules of the fluid filled joints are made up of fat; fat houses toxins; toxins can be recognized by the immune system as an enemy, and the the fight ensues.  THIS is what an autoimmune disease IS.  In this case it's called Rheumatoid, or Gout, or Psoriatic, or just inflammatory arthritis.

When an antigen comes into the body, a macrophage, the Th1 response, will attack it. When the macrophage attacks it, it releases a cytokine called interleukin-1. Interleukin-1 then stimulates T helper cells which call for back-up. The back up arrives as Natural Killer Cells and T Cells and should they not be able to muscle the invader to the ground, they call for help to B cells, the Th2 response. The messengers involved in the Th2 response, which are used to make antibodies, are things like interleukin-4 and interleukin-10.

When the antigen is recognized, the macrophage that's present in the tissue in which the antigen infiltrated will attach to it and release interleukin-1. Interleukin-1 stimulates T helper cells and T helper cells then send out the cytokines to both the T cells and B cells to trigger cell-mediated Th1 attack within the cell and then a humoral-mediated antibody B cell response to try to really destroy the antigen. And this is an active Th1-Th2 response.

Over a period of time, the antigen is destroyed by these immune cells and then the immune response is supposed to stop with the activation of T suppressor cells. T suppressor cells then become elevated and the immune response is halted and balance is restored.

When we look at an autoimmune disease, the antigen that initiates this normal process infiltrates the tissue in question. The body recognizes the antigen and the immune response begins in an attempt to destroy the invader. But what if the invader is stubborn? What if it’s developed an uncanny ability to wall itself off and prevent its own death? What if the antigen is not a living organism? If it’s not even a living organism, can it die? This immune response is meant to combat virus, bacteria, fungus, molds, yeasts, and other living, parasitic, opportunistic beasts attempting to colonize in a host. What if the police force is dealing with a robot that doesn’t die when struck by a bullet? Chemicals, toxic metals, exogenous hormones, food proteins, and environmental poisons are just a few possible antigens that may be the driving force behind an autoimmune response. We HAVE to find the mechanism of the immune attack.

Another marker we can use for autoimmune patients is the CD4/CD8 ratio, CD4 being T helper cells and CD8 being T suppressor cells. If a patient has an elevated CD4/CD8 ratio above 2.0, the immune response is in the ‘drive mode’. Through treatment, we can see if we're actually effective in managing their immune response if we look at this CD4/CD8 ratio, and you see it drop from let’s say 6.0 down to 4.0. We know we are moving in the right direction.

It's absolutely necessary to figure out if a person is Th1 or Th2 dominant because it will dictate what type of nutraceutical protocols that will be most effective for dampening their immune activity. We know that typical ‘immune stimulants’ like Astragalus, Echinacea, Garlic, Glycyrrhizin, Melissa Officinalis, Maitake mushrooms, seem to stimulate the Th1 response. We also know that things like pine bark extract, grape seed extract, green tea extract, Pycnogenol, Resveratrol, and caffeine are things that stimulate the Th2 response. So if a patient’s autoimmune attack of their joints in Rheumatoid Arthritis, thyroid in Hashimoto’s, myelin sheath in Multiple Sclerosis, etc., is a Th1 dominant response, adding Th1 stimulants will MAKE THEM WORSE! You can effectively aid in balancing a Th1 dominant individual by giving Th2 stimulants and visa, versa.

The ONLY way to take care of an autoimmune patient?  

FIND the antigen and get it out of the body!