You’ve heard the saying, “We’re our own worst enemies,” and it definitely applies to healing autoimmune disease. Although you can be your body’s best friend in the healing process, it isn’t always easy. If you find that you frequently get autoimmune flare-ups, chances are good that you’re doing some unintentional things to sabotage your autoimmune healing and possibly even making your autoimmune disease worse.
If you’re wondering, “what makes autoimmune disease worse?” the answer may be that you’re doing things that aren’t in your best interest. Specifically, in treating autoimmune disease, there are five things I often see my patients doing to sabotage their natural autoimmune treatments. In this blog post, I’ll dive into those five things and also show you how to know if you are undermining your own efforts to heal.
Slipping Back into Your Old Habits
When people start to feel better, they often go back to their old habits. They’ll change their diet, start feeling really good, and think things like, “I guess a little ice cream won’t hurt,” or “I can get away with not taking my supplements anymore.” Without realizing it, they stop doing the things that made them feel better and start thinking, “I don’t need this anymore.” But if they haven’t been on the program long enough, then it might not have fixed any of the root problems. This means their symptoms will return, and their progress will go backwards once they stop practicing the beneficial strategies that prompted the improvement.
Recognizing Bad Habits but Not Doing Anything About It
I also see people sabotaging their autoimmune healing by slipping into old habits but not doing anything about it. They might acknowledge a cheat day and promise to get on track tomorrow, but they just don’t. Then they rationalize it by thinking, “Okay, maybe by the weekend I’ll get back on track … or by next week.” And then they’ll keep pushing it off.
Giving Yourself Permission to Cheat
Many of my patients get in the way of their own healing by okaying their cheats. They use excuses to justify doing something that they know they shouldn’t. For example, “Oh, well, I’m on vacation. I can’t eat healthy when traveling because it’s too hard, so I’m not even going to try.” And then they just give up.
Sometimes people make excuses not to exercise when on vacation, saying “It’s too hard to exercise when traveling.” And sometimes, people prioritize social activities instead, saying, “I need to go out with my friends wherever they want to go. They don’t pick the healthiest places, so there are no good choices for me.” In reality, that’s rarely true. There are always choices. You can eat beforehand, or you can ask the restaurant to modify a menu item to accommodate your autoimmune diet. It may take some extra effort, but feeling better is worth it. I recommend reading my How to Eat Healthy When Traveling blog post for advice on sticking with your diet while away from home.
Battling Information Overload
In clinical practice, I encounter autoimmune patients who are trying to do too many things at once in order to treat autoimmune disease naturally. This usually happens when patients try to educate themselves online. They read about supplements and remedies for autoimmune disease, and they try to do 20 things at once, but it doesn’t work like that. You have to do one thing at a time and work on the root causes first and build up a good foundation. Often, doing less is more effective.
The approach also needs to be personalized. People try to rush into things like intermittent fasting, but that approach may be problematic if you have trouble keeping your blood sugar stable. The last thing you want to do is enter into a fasting state that could throw off your blood sugar even more.
There is a right time and a right order in which to do things, and doing too much at once can backfire on you, leaving you frustrated. This happens when people try to treat themselves without lab tests. Information overload is a form of sabotage. For example, imagine watching a YouTube video explaining how everybody has parasites and then deciding to do a massive parasite cleanse without checking to see if you have parasites. That’s a recipe for trouble.
Instead, talk over what you’ve learned online with a functional medicine provider who can show you the best natural autoimmune disease remedies based on your unique clinical history, symptoms, and test results.
Not Paying Attention to Symptoms
Not paying attention to the cues your body is giving you is another form of sabotage. If you do something your body doesn’t like, such as eating the wrong type of food, staying up late, not exercising or exercising too much, you’re getting in the way of your autoimmune healing. Autoimmune symptoms are your body’s way of telling you it’s been exposed to something it doesn’t like. If you ignore those messages, your symptoms will usually get worse. Your body will have to speak louder and louder until you finally pay attention.
How to Know If You’re Sabotaging Yourself
Let’s face it: you don’t always realize you’re sabotaging yourself, and sometimes the people close to you recognize unhealthy habits before you do. That’s why a support system is essential. This can include your spouse, friends, and family.
In addition, having a good functional medicine provider who can order lab tests and obtain objective data is important. A smart practitioner can give you an outside perspective on what you’re doing and how it’s influencing your health.
Keeping a journal about what you’re doing and how you’re feeling is one of the simplest things you can do to stay on the right track. For example, let’s say you were on an elimination diet and you felt great and your symptoms diminished or went away. You can write that down in your journal. If you stop the elimination diet and your autoimmune symptoms come back a couple of months later, you can consult your journal to remind yourself what you were doing when you weren’t having those symptoms. Since you were healthier when you were on the elimination diet, it will prompt you to revisit your diet.
Here’s another example: maybe you’re not sure how you react to certain foods. Write about those foods in your journal after you eat them and include details about how you feel. It can help you identify any dietary troublemakers.
Another way to make sure you’re not getting in the way of your own autoimmune healing is to work with a nutritionist or health coach. At the Caplan Health Institute, we have health coaches that are well-versed in using food and lifestyle as medicine. Health coaches can help not only with accountability, but also getting down to the nitty gritty of what works and what doesn’t. They can look at what you’re eating, how often you’re eating, how you’re combining foods, and how that’s affecting your health. They can help you identify what habits and routines you have that are helping and which ones are not. That outside perspective can be really helpful for healing autoimmune disease.
To Heal, Get Out of Your Own Way
To heal autoimmune disease for the long-term, it’s best to pay attention to- and get rid of- the habits that are causing you to flare up. As a functional medicine provider, I will help you identify the triggers that worsen your symptoms. I can recommend natural autoimmune disease treatments that will help put your autoimmune condition into remission. The first step? Sign up for a free 15-minute discovery consultation. If you come on board as a practice member, I can order the right lab tests and develop a customized plan specific for your autoimmune disease and your needs. As you follow the plan, our health coaches at the Caplan Health Institute can support you every step of the way. You’ll be amazed that even with an autoimmune diagnosis, you can feel better and stay better.
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