Autoimmune Disease: Do I Have It? What Are The Symptoms?

I am not literally asking if "I" have autoimmune disease. I started this thread to see what all the knowledgeable people here may say so that I may learn more about it. Anything anybody has to contribute that they know is the reason I started this thread.


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Questions:

1. Is Autoimmune a disease or a collection of symptoms?

2. If a collection of symptoms, what is the "root cause"?


If we can answer those, we can have answers to questions.




Symptoms of Autoimmune Diseases

Spouses and family members, even though someone may look perfectly healthy, if they have an autoimmune diseases, they are truly ill. It is not in their head.


The following symptoms are common in many, if not all, autoimmune diseases.


Fatigue:
It’s not a good fatigue, from working hard, but an anxious, uncomfortable fatigue related to lack of sleep. Or a disruption of the energy production mechanism in cells, either from lack of oxygen, increased toxicity, infections or a malfunction of the mitochondria.



Sleep Disturbance:
About 80% may wake up three or four times a night, or in some cases you don’t wake up, but in the morning you still feel like a truck ran over you. The reason for this is that subliminal seizures kick you out of stage 4, Delta sleep, to stage 1 sleep so you can’t sleep deeply and wake up not rested.


Short Term Memory Loss:
Because of the low thyroid and heart complications typical in autoimmune diseases, there is a decrease in blood flow to the left lobe of the brain causing an oxygen deficiency in the brain. This can lead to the memory loss and forgetfulness that is common in autoimmune diseases.


Emotional Liability:
Someone may cry more easily, be more anxious and fearful. This is caused by the illness, and is not a psychological reaction!


Depression:
As with the emotional symptoms, the hypothalamus is involved. This is not clinical depression, but literally has a physical cause that is sometimes experienced as a deep depression right in the heart.


Low Thyroid Function.
About 85% have this symptom, but only about 10% of the time does it show up on a typical thyroid test. If you get tested, have both a T3 and T4 done. About 10% have excessive hair loss. For most everyone, a poorly performing thyroid will show up as subnormal temperatures.


Gastrointestinal Problems:
About 75% have this symptom. Can be anything from gas, bloating, cramps, diarrhea or constipation to hiatal hernia, irritable bowel syndrome or Crohn’s Disease. Sometimes taking a simple homeopathic remedy like arsenicum album, 6x or 6c and make a difference with this.


Swollen Glands, Chemical Sensitivity, Headaches:
Allergies often develop, usually after 3 to 5 years. Eyes can be light sensitive for 6 months or longer. Dry eyes can develop. About 20% experience a very uncomfortable disequilibrium of vertigo, almost an out of body feeling that can be most disconcerting.


Pain and Fibromyalgia:
Often diagnosed as a separate illness, fibromyalgia is basically a symptom that can occur with any autoimmune disease. If you have it, you’ve got pain. Often in the neck and in shoulder muscles extending down the back. Can be in the joints and muscles also.


Low Blood Sugar.
Candida Yeast Infections: These are very common. Check your tongue. If it has a white coating, you have it. Or take the spit test you will read about later. Women may get vaginal yeast infections caused by candida overgrowth. A candida infection on its own can cause a number of autoimmune type symptoms. Sinus infections often are caused by candida.


Overdoing:
You overexercise or overwork when your are feeling good, and then feel worse for days afterward. This can cause serious problems. In healthy people the body shuts down when the anaerobic threshold is reached as a lot of pain is experienced. This warning does not occur if you have an autoimmune disease. Instead, the body continues to exercise and experiences no pain as the lactic acid builds up, and the body ends up recirculating carbon dioxide. This is not a healthy thing to have happen to you. It is important not to push too hard when you start recovering, or this will set you back and wipe you out.


Fluttering Heart.
Panic Attacks. Rapid Heartbeat. Mitral Valve Prolapse. Usually blood pressure is low, though it can get high later on. The heart underpumps blood because it is getting incorrect messages from the autonomous nervous system. The body’s feedback loop picks this up and over-reacts. And you get these symptoms.



General Body Disturbance:
Tingling Hands. Ringing ears. Cold toes. Cold fingers. Metallic taste in mouth. Caused by poor circulation. Pain and inflammation in the head and ears. Hearing loss. Tinnitus. Chronic inflammation in the ears and ear infections.




If you have autoimmune illness, it is not likely you have all these symptoms. However, you will have many of them to one degree or another.

 

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I don't know where you got the name 'autoimmune disease' or where the list of symptoms came from. There are numerous diseases known to be auto immune. The list of symptoms you give could be symptoms of almost any sickness whether it was auto immune in nature or not.

 

The deal with Autoimmune disease is that the immune system gets compromised or damaged and starts acting out in inappropriate ways. Thus, almost any kind of symptom is possible. That's why they're so hard to diagnose, and since they don't know why the immune system is out of whack, that's why they don't know how to treat it, except to throw immunosuppressants at it.

 

These are very vague and general symptoms of just about every disease out there.


Personally, I feel that a true diagnosis should come from a medical professional not a support group/message board.

I could cherry pick your symptoms; Fatigue, abdominal cramps, "emotional liability," sleep disturbance and headaches and give the armchair diagnosis of PMS.

 

Many of us are here on the support forum because medical professionals have harmed us more than helped us with respect to Menieres and associated conditions.

 

Ellie, maybe you haven't had the, "Take these steroids even if they put you blood sugar sky high and ingest almost no salt. If that doesn't work I'll stick a needle in your ear," bit. A lot of us have and have found more relief here than in a doc's office.

 

Papajoe, I don't disagree with you. I, myself was initially brushed off by doctors, an ENT told me that since I had no abnormalities on my MRI, that I am perfectly fine and there is nothing wrong.

Please do not be fooled by my post count, I do most of my time here reading, mostly to remind myself that I am not alone, and I am not crazy, that there is something not right. I think my concern is that this forum might be abused/misused. I would hate for someone to read the OP and worry that they have some sort of mystery autoimmune disease, based on the vague symptoms listed. I would hate for someone to jump into a diagnosis or cure posted here without fully researching it or talking it over with their doctor.

I think it's great that a number of people have been helped by the tips and advice given here. But it just needs to be tempered with common sense....It is one thing to try a vitamin regimine or diet, it is another thing to take a list of symptoms and try to make an uneducated/layperson's diagnosis.

 

Then you'll know that an official diagnosis of Menieres, or Autoimmune disease is a highly technical term for "we don't know what you have".

It is true that you need to use common sense. But changing diet, or taking vitamins and supplements (after checking with your doctor to make sure they won't interfere with existing meds) is certainly not dangerous. And of course, you're not saying that.

There are people who will glom on to any list of symptoms in a hypochondriac-like fashion, but if the doctors can't tell you what's wrong with you, I see no harm in trying different approaches. I had one doctor walk out of the examination room and ridicule me in front of the staff (the walls weren't very soundproof), and that despite the evidence I presented that taking antibiotics would be the wrong way to treat me.

I have a group of doctors that I trust. I don't try anything without their advice and approval. But that trust has only been earned by consultation and agreement on what needed to be done. I've kicked a few doctors to the curb for their dangerous decision making. Unlike the old days when doctors were seen as the final word, A doctor must prove his/her competence to me before I'll take them seriously.

 

Honestly not trying to pick a fight here, but why do you feel this way? What makes doctors magically delicious? I know far more about my condition than my ENT. The reason why is because i'm the one who was suffering, and after being trained to be a research scientist, you can bet i spent tons of time researching my condition; time that my ENT doesn't have bc he's too busy working. So in the end, who do i trust?

And this is assuming that your doctor even has a clue or cares. There are plenty who don't fit that bill.

Diagnoses can come from anywhere. You have to open to everything and wisely choose the right source, be it your doctor or someone else or even yourself.

 

Ellie, I get what you are saying and agree with you. My first thought was also that those symptoms could have belonged to any number of diseases.

There is a ton of good info here (most of which we probably wouldn't have learned from our doctors )and things that have really helped people but there is also the potentially dangerous stuff and people that one has to be careful about. I worry about the newbie's who come along and read the stuff without knowing the players here and knowing who has a lot of credibility here and who doesn't.

What you are saying about Common Sense is the key here. We need more posters here with that mentality who are not afraid to post an alternate view or important information in a tactful way.

Welcome to the forum.

 

I think we all agree that we have to be our own advocates and do our own research.

The list of symptoms in the original post describes any illness. Actually, you don't have to be ill at all to experience many of them. Asking someone/anyone if they experience these will almost always get a yes. These kinds of general questions are the kind of thing used to prove things like the veracity of astrological charts, fortune telling and so forth. The first question which is a guaranteed yes is almost always followed by another guaranteed yes question and then the presenter 'proves' the point he wishes to make. Usually a sale follows. I am not claiming that the OP intends to sell something but rather that this list of questions - if googled - will turn up as a lead in to many product placements.

To be meaningful or helpful in any way, we need to pare down the list and get specific using our own experience or studies which make a specific point.

 

And ellie, I apologize for being harsh in my reply. I've been very disillusioned with the medical community based on my experiences with this disease.

My GP says he doesn't know much about my condition and admits that he simply doesn't have time to learn. So he takes what I say at face value, and is usually pretty good about granting requests, even if he doesn't understand why.

My OTO first wanted me to try lo-so and steroids. I've been "tutoring" him on the anti-viral issues and migraine/fungal issues. Quite frankly, the only reason I continue to see him is because he's a bright young lad and he appears to be paying attention.

My GI doc didn't really believe me, but he didn't ridicule me and he performed the tests that I asked for (to rule out obvious GI diseases).

The only doctor who as done me real good is one who underwent a systemic fungal infection himself many years ago.

I do agree that anyone should use common sense, but I'll no longer blindly believe what a doctor tells me.

 

Common sense applies to what doctors tell us too. I have no give up in me unlike most of the doctors I see. But I don't blindly follow what non doctors say anymore than I blindly follow what doctors say. We need to turn a very critical eye to information or we will be wasting our time and our money off on wild goose chases when we could be finding the cure for what ails us (and the cure and what ails us may be a different thing for each person here).

If I could make a guess, I would say Ellie was trying to find a polite way to say - this is not helpful information and may lead a person to a wrong conclusion. Even there I am trying to be polite. I don't think she was saying buy anything your dr says even if it doesn't make sense.

 

This thread is misleading and confusing because I just realized that I am not posting on Holly's autoimmune thread anymore but on a new one created by Earshurt.

I don't like this because there was info on that thread from various contributors which was good info. based on experience and valid research and also with facts and treatments as prescribed by real and experienced doctors.

This is a real muddying of the waters here.

 

I have to disagree with your point here. If EH wanted autoimmune info he could have read Holly's thread that everyone was contributing on and not starting his own thread with his info where he has no experience.

There was already an active thread discussing this very topic with excellent info on it.

 

There are auto immune diseases and disorders but as far as I know no such thing as autoimmune disease. Therefore I don't think anyone can answer questions about something that does not exist. The list of symptoms - and conclusions - offered in the original post sure sounded like they were offered as a diagnostic for this thing the OP calls 'autoimmune disease'. I did my best to respond to that. I didn't feel compelled to respond to a question about what I knew about a hypothetical disorder while ignoring the other 3/4 of the post. Also I would like to know the source of that portion of the post. I think a citation is in order if it is not the original work of the poster which I believe it is not. If the original poster is really interested in evaluating what he has seen posted around the net then I have given my opinion that this information is not of any value. Others may give other opinions.

 

I hear what you are saying Intrepid but why would someone (who has been controversial in his postings) start a new thread on something that he has no experience with except for possibly googling when there is an active thread about the very subject already.

It creates confusion and the informative thread drops off and becomes irrelevant.

Like I said I thought I was posting on the original thread which can be found here:

http://www.menieres.org/forum/index.php/topic,30504.0.html

 

My biggest concern is when people's agendas may be harmful and misleading to the group.

Most people here I take at face value and have much respect, empathy and love for but in this case there are warning bells going off in my head and I know that I am not alone in that.