Immune System Recovery

Whether you have an autoimmune disease or not, Dr. Susan Blum's book The Immune System Recovery Plan is one of the best resources for what is going on with our whole system and how food/environment works against us if we are not aware of the facts.  You may not have an autoimmune but are well on your way to having one or would just like to live the healthiest life you can and not have to contend with such medical adversity.  "...The Immune System Recovery Plan will help anyone wishing to have a healthier more balanced immune system..."  "Genetics are not destiny; they are simply a blueprint for what could happen.  ...Think of them like a road block, not a dead end..." ~Dr. Susan Blum.  Her book is well worth reading!  Below are a few excerpts:

There's a growing epidemic in our country.  It doesn't grab newspaper headlines or make the evening news, but it's there and it is debilitating and potentially deadly.  It is the epidemic of autoimmune disease.  Autoimmune diseases are among the most prevalent forms of chronic illness in this country, now affecting an estimated 23.5 million Americans.  More people suffer from this group of chronic illnesses than from cancer or heart disease, yet most people don't even know what these conditions are.  This lack of awareness is killing us--literally.  It's causing severe pain, disability, and even death.  Worse yet, many people with autoimmune conditions suffer with their symptoms because conventional doctors either can't figure out what's wrong or can't get to the root of the problem.

Autoimmune disease occurs when the body's immune system attacks its own tissues rather than a foreign molecule, such as a bacteria.

Autoimmune diseases affect our bodies at almost every level.  Some affect our nervous system--like autism and maybe even depression--and others affect our joints and muscles, our skin, our endocrine glands, our hearts, and more.

Antibodies are molecules normally made by your immune cells to attack and destroy foreign invaders, but in autoimmune diseases, these antibodies are misdirected and attack and damage your own tissue.  Many of these conditions are chronic, debilitating, and potentially life-threatening.  In fact, autoimmune diseases are one of the top ten leading causes of death in girls and in women up to sixty-four years of age. 

Many traditional doctors have an attitude of "just give in to your illness," which only leads you to feel utterly powerless.  It also makes your disease worse because it undermines the body's natural healing process.  The mind-body connection is real and powerful.  There are many studies that show that the more control a person feels he or she has over a situation, the higher the rate of healing.  People do better, feel better, and live better with various health conditions if they have a sense that there is something they can do for themselves.  And there is!  That is one of the core principles of functional medicine, and as an expert in the field, I'm here to show you how much control you have over your own health and well-being. 

 A functional medicine expert is like a medical detective gathering all the clues of your past (where you grew up, your family situation, traumatic events, health history, etc.) and your present (potential toxins in your environment, social life, stress level, relationships, diet, workout regimen, sleep habits, symptoms, etc.).  Armed with this information, a functional medicine expert tries to uncover how and why your body is not functioning well.  This type of detective work is what I offer all of my patients at Blum Center for Health and what I used to cure myself of the serious autoimmune condition that I had.  It is exactly what I will offer you with the interactive elements that run throughout this book.

"If you are sitting on a tack, the answer is not to treat the pain.  The solution is to find the tack and remove it."  ~Sidney Baker, M.D., a preventive medicine specialist who is often called the father of functional medicine.