If you have fibromyalgia, you are suffering from pain and a number of other symptoms that come with any major debilitating autoimmune disease. In this article you are going to learn about some of those autoimmune symptoms that you may not realize are part of having fibromyalgia.
Common Symptoms:
Unexplained Pain
Chronic Fatigue
Irritable Bowel Syndrome
Chronic headaches
Short Term Memory Loss
Depression
Low Thyroid Function
Gastrointestinal Problems
Swollen Glands, Chemical Sensitivity
Candida Yeast Infections
AutoImmune Disease Issues:
Lack of Cellular Communication
Different types of long chain carbohydrates reside on the surface of cells communicating information about that cell, and allowing it to interact and exchange information with other cells. One thing cells communicate is that they are a part of the body. When cells have these markers, they won’t be attacked. Any cell that doesn’t have these cell markers is treated as “non-self” by the immune system and may be attacked.
The essential heavy molecular weight carbohydrates that make cell markers aren’t common in our diet. With healthy individuals, this is not a problem because they can be made from ordinary carbohydrates. However, the process required to do this is enzyme intensive and as an autoimmune disease develops, enzymes are destroyed throughout the body so you become enzyme deficient and unable to produce adequate amounts of long chain cell markers.
This may be why some cells can’t communicate that they are part of the body. If the immune system is over activated, it may attack those cells. Causing inflammatory damage, and ultimately organ and joint damage.
An Out Of Balance Immune System
Your immune system has two different modes or sides. Th-1 or T helper-1 cells fight pathogens like viruses, mycoplasma and bacteria that are inside the cells. Th-2 or T helper-2 cells fight pathogens outside the cells.
When the immune system is healthy, these two modes function together, supporting each other in keeping the body healthy. But if they get out of balance, if the Th-1 side becomes weak and the Th-2 side over-activated, or the reverse, serious problems develop.
Several things may cause Th-2 cell over-activation.
Stress for one. Stress produces cortisol and cortisol stimulates the production of Interleukin 6 and other Th-2 cells. For this reason autoimmune diseases may manifest after a stressful event such as divorce, an accident, a death in the family.
Exposure to toxins wears out the immune system and thus may cause Th-2 cell over-activation. In addition to the vast number of toxins in our food, water and environment, toxins come from poor digestion, leaky gut syndrome (usually caused by Candida), toxins in drugs and medicine like mercury in vaccines, mycoplasma bacteria, fungi that produce mycotoxins, and other infectious pathogens that excrete toxins as a byproduct of their metabolism. This can get pretty insidious.
Ritchie Shoemaker, M.D. reports on his investigations,
“The pathogens may differ, but the bio-toxins they produce all do their damage by setting off an "exaggerated inflammatory response" in humans. While hiding out in fatty tissues where blood-borne disease-fighters can't get at them, they ‘trick’ the body's immune system into launching attacks of inflammation in many organ systems, including joints, muscles, nerves and brain.”
Steroids and the immune response...
As you can see, balancing the immune system so that it works the way it is supposed to is a fundamental need when you have an autoimmune condition. When a doctor gives a person suffering from an autoimmune disease prednisone or another steroid, which most do, they are trying to turn off the immune system.
Unfortunately, the success rate is low because they are using a poor tool. Because steroids don’t just turn down the Th-2 side, but they also wipe out the Th-1 side. This side needs to be boosted, not depressed. For, unless it can be brought up to normal, it will allow the Th-2 side to over-activate. If one is too low, the other will naturally be too high. Like a teeter-totter.
The body is a remarkable machine. If you can support and balance your immune system adequately, your body may be able to start healing itself and start taking care of the other problems. Generally, however, you have to deal with all the issues in order to get healthy again.
Lack Of Oxygen
Decreased oxygen to the left side of the brain can result in short-term memory loss. And may be a factor in the long term malfunctioning of glandular and hormonal systems in the brain.
In addition, buildup of fibrin on the walls of the blood vessels creates low oxygen areas where cells cannot produce an adequate amount of energy. And may be the reason a common symptom in autoimmune diseases is cold fingers or feet or tingling in the legs. Oxygen is also needed to oxidize and detoxify. When cells don’t have enough oxygen, they are not able to detoxify themselves adequately and they won’t be able to produce adequate amounts of energy which may be a major cause of fatigue.
Oxygen kills anaerobic bacteria, mycoplasma and viruses. It works so well it is used to purify water thru Ozonation.
Candida Yeast Infections
Many people suffer from Candida yeast overgrowth. Estimates are that 80% of the population does. If you have an autoimmune disease, your likelihood of having yeast infections is even higher as your immune system is damaged and probably your intestinal flora too. A major Candida yeast infection can produce similar symptoms to those produced by autoimmune diseases. Extreme fatigue, food sensitivities, allergies, etc.
The reason Candida causes so many problems is that if your body loses its proper immune protection and antibiotics or whatever has destroyed its friendly intestinal bacteria, Candida can overgrow, as it is not killed by antibiotics and “morph” from being beneficial yeast into a harmful fungus. In its fungal form it develops rhizoids (long root-like structures that are invasive and penetrate the mucosa. Once this happens, the boundary between the intestinal tract and the rest of the circulatory system breaks down, and this allows partially digested proteins to travel into the bloodstream where they become toxins.
Detoxification and Free Radical Damage
The problems in autoimmune conditions run much deeper than a messed up immune system, wiped out enzymes, oxygen depleted cells and pathogens making a comfortable home in your guts.
When your liver can’t effectively detoxify your body because its enzymes have been wiped out, toxins build up in your cells. Especially so if mycoplasma are also producing toxins in them. So toxins build up in them. This toxic buildup causes much damage. Damage that can persist even if the autoimmune response is turned off.
Dr. Cheney explains that once the toxicity begins, the toxins themselves inhibit and injure the very enzymes needed to detoxify them. Plus, the cells’ principle detoxification agent and a major viral inhibitor, glutathione, get used up early on. Making it difficult for cells to detoxify, and inhibiting their ability to kill the pathogens infecting them.
Glutathione deficiency has been found to be virtually universal in autoimmune diseases. This deficiency has two major implications: detox failure and viral/microbial activation. Glutathione plays a major role in detoxification. This deficiency impairs the body’s ability to get rid of toxins.
Because glutathione is a potent antiviral and anti-microbial weapon, glutathione deficiency compromises antiviral and anti-microbial defenses, and actually stimulates viral replication. Raising glutathione levels inside the cells can stop the replication of almost any pathogen.
Several studies on the need for Glutathione include:
Immunology 61: 503-508 1987
Bounous et al., 1991
Droege et al., 1997, Gutman, 1998
Journal of Clinical Epidemiology 47: 1021-28, 1994
Biochemical Pharmacology 47:2113-2123, 1994
The Lancet 344: 796-798, 1994
Annual Review of Biochemistry 52: 711-780 1983.
Lamestro, 1995
Glutathione is essential for the maintenance of Vitamin C and vitamin E levels according to Martensson. He found that as glutathione levels decreased, a corresponding decrease in ascorbic acid and vitamin E followed, which led to systematic mitochondrial death, which in turn leads to a cessation of cellular metabolism. (It is this mitochondrial death, at first just a dysfunction, that may cause the fatigue found in autoimmune illnesses.)
Heavy Metal Toxicity
One doctor found that over 80% of his patients with an autoimmune disease had excessive mercury levels. Heavy metals slowly collect in your body, irritate cells and literally can wipe out the immune system.
A natural approach to dealing with this would be using something that contains high levels of alginates. Alginates absorb heavy metals like mercury and other toxins in the intestines where they have been secreted by the bile. As these alginates cannot be absorbed, they are excreted from the body, taking the mercury and other toxins they have absorbed with them.
To learn more about treating fibromyalgia and other autoimmune diseases, visit this website: http://www.health-reports.com/fibromyalgia.html
My name is Robert Harrison. I am 60 years old and hold a Masters in Education from the University of New Mexico.
I began work on the Get Healthy Again.com website in 2000 and started selling products online a year later.
In the early 90’s, I started marketing whole food blue green algae products after learning about autoimmune diseases and products to use for them. Over the next 20 years, as I continued to research and learn about the causes of other health issues, such as cancer, diabetes, candida, autism, osteoporosis and more, I came across exceptional products that helped to correct them. I expanded my companies product line to include those products and began creating additional websites to address these issues.
My main area of expertise is an ability to compile information on ill health conditions and to tell you in simple terms, the underlying causes of those conditions and what you can do about them. Conditions like Candida. Unfortunately, many health professionals use medical language that is very hard to understand and offer treatment suggestions that are focused on pharmaceutical drugs that almost never work well. Others may focus on just one aspect of the condition in an attempt to promote a particular product or group of products and some simply deny the possibility of Candida causing any ill health issues.
I feel that my purpose has been to inform people about the healthy alternative treatments that are available to them.