What an Autoimmune Disease Flare Feels Like and How to Prevent One
You’re fatigued, feeling wiped out, and your brain is foggy. You might even have a rash or be in pain. These are all signs that you’re in an autoimmune disease flare or about to enter one. Whether you’re suffering from lupus flare-ups or rheumatoid arthritis flare-ups, we’ve helped a lot of our practice members reduce the frequency and severity of their flare-ups, even putting their autoimmune diseases into remission.
This blog post will cover autoimmune disease flare-ups, root causes of lupus flare-ups or what makes an RA flare worse, how to avoid common flare triggers, supplements, and habits that can stop an autoimmune disease flare from happening in the first place.
What Is a Flare-Up in Autoimmune Disease?
An autoimmune disease flare is when your autoimmune disease symptoms worsen. Flares happen when the immune system becomes more active, which causes more symptoms or tissue destruction and damage.
How to Know If You’re Having an Autoimmune Disease Flare
Flare-ups are highly personalized, and each person with autoimmune issues experiences flare-ups differently. Despite those differences, flares have some things in common. When people are entering a flare, they usually experience low energy, which can manifest as outright fatigue or exhaustion. They may have more gradual dips in energy even if they’re not fully exhausted yet. Lower energy is a red flag that a flare may be on the horizon. You may also notice that your body isn’t recovering as well from factors like diet or exercise stressors.
Other signs of autoimmune disease flares include brain fog, rashes, and digestive problems. You might notice changes in bowel habits, or you’re not tolerating certain foods as well as you were in the past.
Another indication of a pending autoimmune flare includes signs of increased inflammation. Watch for clues such as joint pain, muscle pain, gut discomfort, and headaches, as well as swelling.
Sometimes the onset of autoimmune flare-ups can be gradual, while other times a flare can come on suddenly. Sudden-onset flares usually are caused by a specific trigger. For example, we often see a lupus or RA flare after getting sick with COVID or after a COVID booster. You might notice a direct correlation between a trigger and developing a flare.
Avoiding Autoimmune Flare Triggers
Autoimmune disease flare triggers can tip the scales when there’s an immune system imbalance, usually due to an underlying root cause. Lupus flare causes can be different for each person. Likewise, rheumatoid arthritis flare-up causes will be unique for each person. Still, there are common themes we discover when investigating the root causes of autoimmune flare-ups.
In day-to-day life, you’re faced with immune system triggers, such as stress, food and environmental toxins, hormone imbalances, gut microbiome imbalances, and more. The best prevention for a flare is learning what your triggers are. What factors are sending your immune system into overdrive? That way you can avoid those factors and modify your lifestyle and diet to prevent those triggers from sending you into a tailspin.
For example, if you’re aware that you have insulin resistance and your blood sugar isn’t stable, make sure your eating habits promote stabilized blood sugar. Insulin resistance is when your body is not managing your blood sugar levels well and produces more and more insulin in order to suppress blood sugar. In this case, improving your eating habits will prevent insulin surges from causing inflammation and triggering your immune system.
It’s important to be attuned to your body. If you notice when you’re starting to feel run down before you become fully wiped out and exhausted, you can stop the flare early and put the flames out before they become a raging fire.
How to Prevent an Autoimmune Flare-Up
There are three approaches to stop flares, depending upon what stage you’re in:
- Prevent a flare from happening in the first place.
- Nip a flare in the bud.
- Calm a flare-up that’s already happening.
Regardless of what stage you’re in, it’s helpful to set up foundational habits that ward off autoimmune flares. Many of these habits help to address the root causes of autoimmune disease. Ideally, you want to maintain good habits before you develop a flare in the first place. However, you can also stop a flare from becoming worse or suppress an ongoing flare-up by putting good habits into action every day.
The habits you want to address are:
• Drinking enough fluids.
• Eating a healthy diet with lots of diversity and foods that you can tolerate.
• Exercising, but not so much that it wears you out.
• Getting refreshing sleep
• Handling stress
These habits set you up for success because they give your body everything it needs for optimum performance. Sleep is necessary for immune system function, for example. When these foundational areas are neglected, it can set you up for a flare. One of the most common triggers of autoimmune disease flares? Stress, especially when you do not have an outlet for it.
Using Supplements to Stop an Autoimmune Disease Flare-Up
Stopping an autoimmune disease flare-up is very individualized because it depends on what triggered it. Even so, specific supplements can be a tool in virtually every autoimmune patient’s toolbox for preventing and stopping flares. Let’s say it’s the holidays and you relax your dietary restrictions or you’re stressed and it triggers a flare-up. A lot of times supplements are easy to use in order to give some extra support during a flare. At Caplan Health Institute, the supplements we find most helpful are natural anti-inflammatories and those that regulate the immune system such as:
• Glutathione
• Omega-3s
• Turmeric
• Vitamin D3
• Magnesium
One of my favorite supplements for autoimmune flare-ups is glutathione, which is crucial to give the immune system some support to rebalance itself.
Using Lab Tests to Prevent Flares
Your functional medicine provider can order lab tests that will show you whether you’re heading in the right direction. This objective data can measure markers for autoimmune disease such as inflammation or antibodies. Based on those test results, your functional medicine practitioner can tell you if there’s anything you need to do to avoid a flare. For example, if testing shows your inflammation markers are rising or there’s a change in your antibody levels, that should indicate there’s something happening that can lead to a flare even if you’re not yet experiencing some of the big symptoms yet.
Support for Your Autoimmune Disease Flare
If you want to stop your lupus flare-ups, or prevent a flare-up of rheumatoid arthritis, or you have another autoimmune disease that worsens from time to time, Caplan Health Institute is here to help. The first step is to schedule a free 15-minute discovery consultation, by phone or video.
If you decide to come on board as a practice member, we can order tests and create a personalized plan to determine whether you’re at risk for an autoimmune flare, show you how to stop them from happening in the first place, or calm any current flare-ups. We call our patients “practice members” because they take an active role in their health.
We’ll work with you to optimize your daily habits to fend off flares in the first place. You’ll have more confidence that you can stay healthy and focused thanks to our personalized strategies to reduce symptoms of autoimmune flares. We’ll help you have more energy, think clearer, and improve your overall health. Reach out to us today for your consultation so that tomorrow you can start experiencing a transformation in your health.
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