Autoimmune Disease: How To Stop Your Body From Attacking Itself

[condoleeza]

The incidence of autoimmune disease has tripled in the last few decades. 24 million Americans are now affected. In fact, it affects more women than heart disease and breast cancer combined.

But autoimmune disease isn't just one condition ...

You're probably familiar with the most common autoimmune diseases, like rheumatoid arthritis, lupus, multiple sclerosis, inflammatory bowel disease, type-1 diabetes, hypothyroidism, and psoriasis. But there are many more autoimmune diseases that affect the nervous system, joints and muscles, skin, endocrine gland, and heart.

Simply put, autoimmune diseases are conditions where the body's immune system attacks its own tissues rather than a foreign molecule like bacteria. This happens when something confuses the immune system. Increasingly, that "something" appears to be the enormous load of environmental toxins to which we are all exposed.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dr-mark-hyman/autoimmune-disease-how-to_b_283707.html

As someone who has researched this for 10 years, someone who has had chelation treatment for lead poisoning, and has heard endless stories via websites and in the doctors office while being chelated, I am just wondering about others here who have been through it.

The comments on HuffPo are pretty indicative of the good job the pharmaceuticals and insurance companies have done to frighten people, IMO. What say you?

[luvspeas]

1. I once went to the doctor in Houston...

because I was having bad allergies. He had the nerve to say that the toxins spewed by all the chemical plants and refineries in the area were allergens! I told him he didn't know what he was talking about. Toxins and poisons are not allergens. they are toxins and poisons! No wonder they don't know what to do to help people.

[Chulanowa]

5. Problem was, he was right

Allergens are any substance that triggers a hypersensitive immune reaction. Could be ragweed pollen, could be bleach, could be any number of things.

[condoleeza]

12. Mainstream medicine is ruled by the insurance industry

and every article relating to autoimmune diseases that recommends alternative treatment is bombarded with "crafted skepticism" by the pharmaceutical industry, which makes private research difficult. The vast majority of their income derives from drugs to "treat" rather than cure. All I know is my personal experience and the experiences of others who have been there and whose lives were changed by alternative therapies.

My husband grew up in Tacoma, which is one of the worst areas of toxic poisoning in the US, probably second to the Hanford area and I have family from there also from my first marriage. Of a family of 5, 2 have died of cancer and 2 have had cancer. There is a map of the state of Washington at the major cancer center in Seattle where people who are there for lengthy treatment can connect by putting your name and room number on a flag on the map. The Hanford/Tri-Cities area is not a highly populated area, but that part of the map was clustered with flags where Hanford is and where this family lived while her Dad was a guard there. They gardened, my former SIL remembers many occasions where her Dad called home and told his wife to put the kids inside and close all windows and doors. Hmmm...

My husband's family has heart disease, autism, allergies, diabetes and asthma. His parent's siblings have none of this, none of them grew up in Tacoma. Now we have the recent reports of MRSA on 5 beaches near the family home, which his sister bought from their parents and she has a child with Aspergers. His brother also has a child with Aspergers or another form of autism and they are treating this 18 yr. old "child" only dietarily, have never had his hair tested for heavy metals - in spite of the fact that his mother is an anesthesiologist so she should have some knowledge of medicine, wouldn't you imagine?. My husband has asthma and severe allergies and high blood pressure. The last 2 visits here with his parents have both had incidents that the first time had us actually calling 9/11 for his Dad, and the last was nearly so, had it not been for the fact that my husband is a paramedic and intervened.

Even with this history and my husband's training, I cannot get them to look into chelation therapy. Boggles the mind.

[wolfgangmo]

24. I have a bone to pick with you here.

Mainstream medicine is NOT what is practiced in the US. We have only 5% of the population and the medicine practiced in our non-system of medicine is insurance medicine, which is to say it is only procedures and treatments that the docs have learned will be paid for. Not the best practices, not the cutting edge, but rather what they are pretty sure might not be rejected outright.

Medicine, I dare say, is not practiced in the US, insurance is.

[condoleeza]

29. Not sure what you are arguing here,

but if what you are arguing here is that we have a system that only covers that the procedures and treatments that doctors will be paid for you are preaching to the choir. Clearly medicine is not practiced in the US - it is dominated by the insurance companies. I can only HOPE, as someone who spent most of '08 campaigning for Obama, that his health insurance agenda is what I see it as. What I see is that he has introduced the "single payer wedge". If employers drop coverage and give their employees an option that they will subsidize, I can only hope and wish that this will be the wedge that guts the insurance industry. It needs to die now. They are killing us.

[TrogL]

57. You cannot cure Asperger's or autism.

Chelation, iron lungs or all those other quack cures you find in the back of poorly printed "Cure autism" magazines cannot work.

I am an Aspie for the simple reason that I do not own a copy of the genetic code required to correctly form the portions of the brain required for socialization and facial recognition. Chelation, vitamins, any other "alternative therapy" or screaming in my face is not going to change that.

[condoleeza]

58. I'm certainly not an expert on Aspergers or Autism

but my nephews are both on gluten free diets and are not allowed to have sugar and some other foods, which is much easier controlled with the 3 yr. old than the 18 yr. old.

Chelation is not a quack cure, if I hadn't had chelation I would be disabled now, as would many people I met, including a woman who had been ill for 10 yrs. and nobody could diagnose anything. She woke up one morning and was unable to speak. She finally followed the advice of a friend and found astronomically high levels of mercury. She had to have 23 teeth pulled because they were full of amalgam (mercury) fillings and they were afraid she would stroke out if she ingested any more mercury. After 15 IV's of DMPS, she woke up one morning and literally could feel the mercury leaving - within days she regained the ability to speak.

The point I was trying to make here is that a hair test is an inexpensive and painless way to see what your body burden for heavy metals is. If you test within normal ranges, fine - you don't need to be chelated, but if you show any toxicity you should have it removed. It just seems to me that this is a simple test to rule out heavy metals as any cause. Mercury is stored in the brain, lead in your bones, hair & teeth, no blood test will show an accurate reading for lead as it stays in the blood for only 30 days after exposure. If fluoroscopic xrays were used by anyone other than sports doctors, metals would likely show up there as well.

I also know people who have had amazing results from using DMPS for chelation on children with Autism. Certainly it does not work for all, but it's worth a shot, IMO.

[TrogL]

64. So let's hear about these "amazing" results

...at what age they occured and your proof that anything other than chelation (including the brain itself finally getting around to developing) could not have caused the effect.

It's not "worth a shot" if you're spending money on that rather than something that might actually help, like a therapist trained in dealing with autistic kids.

[condoleeza]

69. Despite your adversarial attitude on this subject, which I really don't understand

I will try to explain and give examples of my own and other's experience. I wrote this already " if I hadn't had chelation I would be disabled now, as would many people I met, including a woman who had been ill for 10 yrs. and nobody could diagnose anything. She woke up one morning and was unable to speak. She finally followed the advice of a friend and found astronomically high levels of mercury. She had to have 23 teeth pulled because they were full of amalgam (mercury) fillings and they were afraid she would stroke out if she ingested any more mercury. After 15 IV's of DMPS, she woke up one morning and literally could feel the mercury leaving - within days she regained the ability to speak."

This woman was sitting across the room from me while I was getting an IV of EDTA, she was sketching, I asked what she was drawing. She was about 70 years old and her husband was with her. She said she was drawing me and so I asked her what her story was, as I had to many others who had been getting chelation in prior weeks. Her husband, in tears, told me her story. They thought she had had a stroke. She had been sick for so long, unable to get out of bed on many days, she had had every test possible for Rh factor, etc. and NOTHING came back positive. She is only one of 5 people I met who had somewhat less dramatic experiences, but who all said the same thing: that they had been ill for years, in pain for years, no diagnosis for their illness. They finally decided chelation could not hurt because all of them had a mouth full of mercury fillings. ALL of them had dramatic improvement, all of them felt the mercury "leaving", all of them had amazing improvements in their quality of life with chelation.

I am not portraying myself as any expert on autism. This is not what I have, but I have two nephews with a form of it and I have already written on this post about this so I don't think I need to go into that, it's already here.

In 1992 I heat stripped my house, I was 43. The house had lead paint on it. I was clueless. I didn't wear a mask or gloves and I gardened in the dust. I had worked for 20 years in construction with my husband sheet rocking and hanging vinyl commercially and prior to this I was in perfect health. I played competitive volleyball and I coached little league, I was a jock. I had dabbled in 1989 working in the film industry and was hired to work on a movie and I left town a week after I stripped our house to go on location to work on this film. I was in extreme pain and had never experienced this before in my life. Prior to this I was also dabbling in stained glass. Nobody ever warned us "students" that the lead we were soldering could be absorbed through our skin and inhaled as vapor. I don't remember being sick when I was doing stained glass, but then lead only stays in the blood for a month before it's absorbed into bones, hair and teeth. I barely survived this job. I could only sleep sitting up, I was dizzy, I was nauseus, I wrote it off to being overwhelmed with my responsibilities of being the key in my dept. on a major film for the first time in my life.

I came home, felt better (lead was now not in my blood). Then the other symptoms began to appear. I had eczema, I was depressed, I had headaches, I developed food allergies, I developed arthritis in both my wrists and hips. I would come home from work in so much pain that I would get out of my van and stand next to it knowing I had hours of prep work to do before my 6Am call in the morning and I would just cry, for someone who has been mostly a "boy" all her life, this was just so scary, so overwhelming that I really believed that I had cancer or something. At this point I begin seeing a rheumatologist & dermatologist. I was misdiagnosed with psoriasis, I tested negative for the RhFactor and nevertheless, I was prescribed methotrexate and steroids.

About this time I became computer savvy and began my own research. It made no sense to me to take methotrexate, which is a cancer drug that suppresses the ENTIRE immune system, but it is the front-line drug for the head of the rheumatology dept. where I was being seen. I refused to take it and I decided against any more steroids, because they are a temporary fix that cause further damage to tissue. My research led me to wonder if I had heavy metal toxicity so I had my hair tested. I was in the 97th percentile for lead.

So I begin a dialogue with a woman I knew from work who had similar issues which were resolved by chelation. I undergo a "test" for chelation where I am given EDTA and then collect my urine for 24 hrs. The urine is tested for lead. The urine is an EXACT replication of my hair test and these were done by DIFFERENT labs. Every week I feel better, I have my fillings removed and replaced. And then, on a job in 1997 I get a massive case of food poisoning and feel like crap again. So I do more research, I am tested for HLA-B27, I get more arthritis symptoms and skin symptoms. I decide to go with Naturopathy, as my rheumatologist thinks I am crazy not to take all the drugs he recommends.

I now take NO prescription medication, no pain medication, I take Tylenol when needed. I rejected the recommendation for a trapeziectomy and decided to do prolotherapy for the damage to my wrists and am virtually pain free. Currently I have had digestive issues. I have been lax in self-chelating, which you can do by using EDTA as a food additive and which costs nearly nothing, so I am being vigilant on that now and I am doing a gluten free diet and hope that will help. I don't do dairy. I don't fit into any category for Crones disease or colon cancer and continue to pursue a dietary solution to my malabsorption and weight loss issues and I am scheduled for a colonoscopy, but doubt that will show anything - but I will still do it.

I have NO FAITH in western med., as I've said here before. All I know is that up until 3 yrs. ago I was doing great, I remodeled numerous houses, I built decks - all after '92. I was 57 when I started to feel sick again, so, I am 60 now and I have paid for this "alternative medicine" out of pocket even though I have full insurance that IMO would have damaged me further. Yeah, there is nothing nicer than a shot of cortisone to stop joint pain. Loved it while I did it, but it only destroys cartilage eventually. So, with alternative medicine I have resolved my pain issues and am satisfied that I made the right decisions. The personal cost vs paying a co-pay for the ridiculously expensive meds I was being prescribed by my PCP pretty well equals out. I am not doing ooga-booga medicine here, I am doing dietary medicine.

And frankly if you are recommending a "therapist" believe me I've done that. I'm not dealing with autistic kids and maybe you are, if so, you have my deepest regards, I cannot imagine. I know what my husbands siblings deal with and it has been life-consuming for them. Kids are happy as hell.

You are obviously frustrated, I can understand that, but don't give up on your own research.

[TrogL]

74. thank you for your detailed reply

Please tell me more about problems with cortisone and other steroids. Craftygal injured her shoulder in a car accident. We thought the problem was a torn rotator cuff but the mri says arthritis

[condoleeza]

79. Please see my post #75, TrogL

You can find numerous articles on the internet about the dangers of cortisone and other steroids. It is well known that cortisone - while it is a miracle when you first use it - also ultimately damages the joints. Prednisone is one of the most dangerous steroids if it is used longer than 6 weeks. You have to weaned off of it. If you use it long term it has horrible effects.

All the MRI's I had done on my shoulder, elbow and both wrists indicated arthritis. This is to say that it looked like the damage done by arthritis. I'd be curious to know if Craftygal has been tested for the marker for arthritis. I was and do not have it. It is debatable as to why I have joint damage. Certainly I have overused my joints in my work and sports and lead is known to damage joints. 4 years ago I fell on my wrist and even though the x-ray clearly showed that the bones had shifted, since there was no fracture, my MD did nothing. This wrist had never been a problem before, as it is my left wrist and I am right handed. It gradually became very painful and swollen. 2 years ago I was told I needed to have a trapeziectomy (the removal of the small bone at the base of my thumb) I thought that was a rather drastic solution - in that the success rate is only around 50% and prior surgery on my right wrist hadn't helped. I had no faith in my rheumatologist at this point and he didn't like me much either because I wouldn't do methotrexate.

I did more research and chose to have prolotherapy, which I've continued with for almost 2 years. You can learn about this with a Google search. They are still learning how prolo works, but it works. The joint is injected with a solution that causes an immune reaction - resulting in the development of scar tissue that appears to mimic the lost cartilage that is the source of pain. In my case it has been a miraculous change. I used to take probably 2000 MG of Ibuprophen a day and I did this for YEARS, which ultimately would have or possibly has already damaged my organs and could explain my malabsorption problems now. I take NO Ibu anymore. I take only Tylenol as needed, which isn't often. My naturopath treats both of my wrists at the same time, it isn't a lot of fun, but I cannot say enough good about it. I have probably had prolo done 12 times. It costs me about $260 per session and isn't covered by insurance, but it is worth every penny. I take 3 supplements - EPA-DHA 720 made by Metagenics, Ligament Restore made by PureEncapsulations and BCQ made by Vital Nutrients, these are a little spendy.

There is no doubt in my mind that Craftygal would benefit from prolo. My SIL has had chronic lower back pain, due to an injury, for many years. He has been getting prolo and it has changed his life as well. Pain sucks.

[pnwmom]

72. This doctor at Harvard, a pediatric neurologist, questions your assumption

that these conditions are "hard-wired" by the genes.

She doesn't believe in "quack cures" but she also doesn't think that autism or Asperger's is purely a genetic disorder. More and more doctors are beginning to share her opinion.

http://www.alternative-therapies.com/at/web_pdfs/herbert_long.pdf

"But my work over the years has led me to question the strongly held assumption that autism is a neuro-developmental disorder that is wired in before
you’re born, a “static encephalopathy.”
The “static encephalopathy,” hard-wired assumption is certain-
ly entrancing. It sort of makes sense because after all, autism does
start early, and it sure seems like a life sentence. Even so, I began to
realize that there are alternatives to the ways some of the fi ndings
being used to support this idea are being interpreted. For example,
some brain studies looked at tissue in people who died and saw cellu-
lar changes that looked like they probably happened before the indi-
vidual was born. But this was an interpretation of the arrangement
of cells. One example is tightly packed cells in the limbic system;
another example is changes in the brain stem. These brain tissue
changes were found in less than a dozen brains each. So on the basis
of a small number of brains, global inferences were made that this
must have all happened in the third to fourth week of gestation or
the 30th week of gestation. This interpretation became a “fact” that
actively blocked funding of postnatal processes in autism—I have
watched this blocking occur in grant review processes.
Now we’re fi nding changes in the brain that appear to have
happened after birth. I found white-matter enlargement that was
consistent with what other people were fi nding, which was that in
autism the brain on average gets bigger after the child is born. This
is one of the things I found that was outside of the model I’d started
with. Subsequent work has found that there is a massive brain
growth spurt in the fi rst 2 years after birth, where the rate of growth
of the autistic brain—and this may be a subgroup, but it’s a sub-
stantial subgroup—shoots up and the brain gets way bigger by the
time the child is 2 than in an average 2-year-old. And then the
growth rate slows down relative to children without autism, so that
there is no brain volume difference by adolescence, and by adult-
hood brains in autistic individuals are even a little smaller than
those in typically developing individuals. So something is going on
after birth, and though you can make up a story that it is triggered
prenatally, no one has proved that or excluded the role of post-na-
tal factors."

She goes on to discuss what some of these factors may be. You might find this interesting.

[condoleeza]

75. EVERYONE SHOULD READ EVERY WORD IN THIS ARTICLE!!!

that was linked to in the prior post by pnwmom. http://www.alternative-therapies.com/at/web_pdfs/herbert_long.pdf

This is absolutely fascinating research that this woman is doing. It is an interview - it is very scientific - but it is also a "conversation" so it is easy to follow and understand.

Thank you so much for posting this link. I am sending it to everyone I know whose lives are impacted by any of the forms of autism. A must read.

From page 8 – REALLY INTERESTING!!!!

One of the things I’ve gotten into sociologically and philosophically, as well as scientifically and clinically, is thinking about
how our assumptions shape even something as ostensibly “objective” as laboratory measures. I started to think about, number one,
how do you decide what is a normal range for a laboratory measure? And number two, what sorts of things do you measure? I got
into this because like many clinicians, I have sent organic and amino acids to academic labs for metabolic workups of autistic
patients, and they come back with lots of individual values being high or low, but with the whole study being interpreted as normal.
This frustrates even colleagues who know nothing about functional medicine. You start to be able to think about it when you add environment
to your equation. If you have a metabolic pathway that is being inhibited by the environment, or an immune system that
just isn’t working up to par, a much lower level of noxious stimulus can get you into trouble and yet if you send a sample to a lab,
they’ll call it normal because it won’t fi t the patterns of genetic diseases that they are looking to diagnose. I think that the whole
domain of environmental illness of which autism, in my view, is one example, raises these kinds of problems.

We come from a paradigm where diseases are serious and life threatening and somebody’s in a hospital bed and they can’t get
around—or, it’s due to a specific identifiable gene or microbe; with that as a standard of disease, if you don’t meet the criteria for being
a train wreck or for having a highly specified and fully manifested disease pattern, then you’re considered normal. If your laboratory
uses train-wreck reference ranges or only looks for specific and narrowly defined disease patterns, its interpretations of its measurements
simply won’t be sensitive to the kind of chronic, insidious perturbations that could be going on. (end of quote)


I think I've said this previously, but my daughter is in pre-med and worked in molecular biology doing brain research for many years post grad. They were studying the effect on the neural pathways in the brains of rats who had been bred to have abnormal hormone levels. Months of research was destroyed overnight when one of the post docs placed most of the slices of the brains they were studying into plastic petri dishes. The tissue turned to jelly only in the plastic dishes. Because of this my daughter has never used plastic dishes or bedding for her children. We made their bedding out of 100% cotton and boiled wool. She only uses glass or stainless steel for dishes. They have no toys made of plastics known to be ones that emit toxins. They are brilliant, healthy kids and maybe that's just good fortune, but she is convinced you cannot be too careful.

[pnwmom]

76. I'm glad you read this, Condoleeza, and I'm going to send

your post to my daughter as well. She is a biomedical engineer, also hopes to have children, and I want her to read your comments about plastic.

[TrogL]

80. Please read it with a large bushel of salt

It raises more questions than it answers.

Where, exactly, does this woman work and what, exactly does she do?

She proposes collecting data from people who have "gone outside the mainstream" and treated their kids in uncontrolled situations. We are then expected to allow this data into a controlled study. Nonsense.

The article is full of "going to", "plan to" ... what has she actually done?

Alternative Therapies is a "peer reviewed" journal. Who are the peers? Other people who traffic in alternative therapies? That's an echo chamber.

She goes on and on about heavy metals and GI problems. What do you bet her studies reveal that chelation and bowel enzymes cure autism.

[pnwmom]

92. "Where does she work"? I told you, she teaches at Harvard, where she's a

pediatric neurologist. If you had read even the first paragraph of the article, you would have learned much more.


Martha Herbert, MD, is an assistant professor of Neurology at
Harvard Medical School, a pediatric neurologist at Massachusetts
General Hospital (MGH) in Boston, a member of the MGH Center
for Morphometric Analysis, and an affi liate of the Harvard-MIT-
MGH Martinos Center for Biomedical Imaging. She is director of the
Treatment Research and Neuroscience Evaluation of
Neurodevelopmental Disorders (TRANSCEND) Research Program.
Dr Herbert earned her medical degree at the Columbia University
College of Physicians and Surgeons. She holds a doctoral degree from
the University of California, Santa Cruz, where she studied evolution
and development of learning processes in biology and culture in the
History of Consciousness program and then did postdoctoral work in
the philosophy and history of science. She trained in pediatrics at
Cornell University Medical Center and in neurology and child neurol-
ogy at MGH. For her neuroimaging research and its implications, she
received the fi rst Cure Autism Now Innovator Award. She is co-chair
of the Environmental Health Advisory Board of the Autism Society of
America (ASA) and directs ASA’s Treatment Guided Research
Initiative (TGRI). Some of her papers are available on her website,
www.marthaherbert.com.

[Gator_Matt]

63. Not true

"every article relating to autoimmune diseases that recommends alternative treatment is bombarded with "crafted skepticism" by the pharmaceutical industry."

I'm a liberal and skeptical about the powers that be, but I object to this statement. As someone with a PhD in the field of immunology, I can say that if you can back up a study with solid evidence, you'll get it published. There is no conspiracy, but there are a lot of quacks out there. I can't tell you the number of unsubstantiated "alternative" therapies I've come across that provide neither data nor mechanism supporting their claims. That's not to say politics/money don't drive clinical trials, but it's certainly not like you make it out to be.

Environmental toxins ARE recognized in the literature as possibly contributing to autoimmunity. To give you an example, I just came across an article in 'Nature' linking dioxins with the balance between regulatory T cells and inflammatory TH17 cells. This is the perfect example of "if you can back it up, it'll get published." As you probably are aware, Nature is a premier scientific journal.

[condoleeza]

70. You obviously trump me by having a PhD in immunology, but...

for you to dismiss "alternative therapies" and disagree with my statement that "every article relating to autoimmune diseases that recommends alternative treatment is bombarded with "crafted skepticism" by the pharmaceutical industry." is rather naive. If you were me and you were researching your own health issues and you had to deal with all the misinformation and skepticism out there on the internet, you would feel differently.

I don't buy into BS cures. I don't spend hundreds of dollars on homeopathic tinctures that have no research to back them up. I take vitamins, pure fish oil, maintain a good diet and do what I can and continue to research. I know there are quacks out there and I believe I have not succumbed to miracle cures. What I have done so far has helped me and I continue to research.

So you say that "Environmental toxins ARE recognized in the literature as possibly contributing to autoimmunity" and believe me I have endless hours of research on this. You do not believe that what we are told is completely skewed by the evil-doers who don't want illness cured? I repeat that: You do not believe that what we are told is completely skewed by the evil-doers who don't want illness cured? Jesus Christ - This country spends billions of dollars a year on WORTHLESS drugs that only make them sicker - but they make a lot of people rich.

My daughter is a published researcher. She worked on the genome project. She also worked for the Department of Fish & Wildlife. She is currently in pre-med. When she worked for DFW she was on location where she collected squawfish from the Columbia River. The squawfish feed on baby salmon. She found a 67% mutation rate on the squawfish. She asked her supervisor if she should keep data on that. He said no. 8 years later BIG STORY "Columbia river squawfish have mutations". This is downriver from the Hanford Nuclear Reservation. These are fish my friends catch and eat. My daughter took a time-out to have 2 amazing children - who she has raised w/o any plastics in their food cycle or their bedding or their diapers or anywhere, after seeing the effects of plastic petri dishes on tissue while she did research - and she is now pursuing her medical degree.

Forgive me for being skeptical, but this entire economy runs on major cover-ups and I have no idea what you are doing now for a career. I am just a layman, someone who is trying to resolve health issues w/o using toxic drugs, and it is becoming increasingly clear that the "experts" have no fucking idea why so many people are sick. They don't care, they are just "doing their little fucking government jobs".

I posted a link earlier about LDN, suggest you look at it.

Edited to correct the mutation rate on squawfish

[pnwmom]

73. As a PhD in immunology, you might be interested in reading

about what a Harvard pediatric neurologist has to say about "alternative" viewpoints about autism and Asperger's.

http://www.alternative-therapies.com/at/web_pdfs/herbert_long.pdf


"More recently my group’s finding regarding the distribution of white
matter enlargement has been pursued by my colleague Carlos
Pardo, a neurologist and neuropathologist at Johns Hopkins, who
had already demonstrated activated microglia and activated astro-
glia in brain tissue from autistic individuals—these are signs of
innate immune activation. After reading my paper localizing white
matter enlargement, he went back and stained tissue in the same
distribution as the areas I’d measured, and he detected cellular
changes consistent with immune activation in the same parts of
white matter where I had detected volumetric enlargement. This
suggests that this white matter enlargement may be related to
immune activation, which may be driving brain enlargement and
impairing brain function.
Dr Pardo’s fi ndings of brain immune activation completely
change the playing fi eld of what is relevant to how autism works. In
other words, if that’s going on, then you have an ongoing chronic-
disease process. There may or may not be early wiring changes, but
you have an ongoing chronic-disease process. And that’s a totally
different ball game from what we’ve been thinking about autism—
it adds a whole extra axis to the dimensions in which we need to
characterize the condition.
To flesh out the implications of these chronic changes in
autism, I wrote a paper called “Autism: A Brain Disorder or a
Disorder That Affects the Brain?”

SNIP

[TrogL]

77. Ruh Oh

If you prospectively look for GI problems in children with autism, deliberately seeking out signs and symptoms, you
get much higher numbers.

That's not how you do research. You look at the data, then reach a conclusion. You don't conclude something then mine the data looking for it.

[pnwmom]

78. I think this Harvard faculty pediatric neurologist knows more about her subject

than you do.

[TrogL]

83. I think I found the problem

This is a "popular" article - dumbed down to the point of incomprehensibility.

I found some of her stuff on the Harvard website that makes a lot more sense.

[pnwmom]

91. I think the problem was that you didn't read the whole article;

either that, or you have a somewhat naive or overly idealistic view of the way science is conducted.

[condoleeza]

81. Please try to keep an open mind on this, TrogL

I don't know what your background on this is, but you are obviously very frustrated for some reason. What Dr. Herbert said in the paragraph you took this quote from makes a lot of sense to me.

Please read the story about George and Tory Mead and their son Will at this link: http://www.ageofautism.com/2008/05/holland-on-th-1.html
You can also Google more stories about the lawsuits he has participated in that relate to thimerosol. I know George personally and this has become his life work.

http://www.asaccc.org/newsparentswin.html

[TrogL]

82. Oh, puuuuuleeeez

...don't tell me you're on the thimerosol bandwagon on top of everything else.

[TrogL]

85. Yup - the usual logical fallacies

My kid got vaccinated at age two.
My kid got autism at age two.
Therefore being vaccinated caused autism.

Maybe being two caused autism.

[condoleeza]

87. Ok, I've tried to discuss this, now I am giving up n/t

[condoleeza]

86. You said this in an earlier post, TrogL, and I had forgotten that

"I am an Aspie for the simple reason that I do not own a copy of the genetic code required to correctly form the portions of the brain required for socialization and facial recognition. Chelation, vitamins, any other "alternative therapy" or screaming in my face is not going to change that."

So clearly you have reasons to be frustrated. What I'd like to ask you is - what if the research you base this conclusion on is wrong? My 18 yr. old nephew has had digestive problems all his life, as does my 3 yr. old nephew. If it is true that the statistics researchers see on the incidence of bowel problems is as common as it has been shown to be among children who have Autism or Aspergers, how can you not conclude that there could be a connection? What if gene therapy could cure these conditions? Scroll down to "What are some recent developments in gene therapy research?" on this site: http://www.ornl.gov/sci/techresources/Human_Genome/medicine/genetherapy.shtml

What medicine has done for my daughter's friend is truly amazing. Please read Christine's story. http://saffronbutterflyfluttersby.blogspot.com/ Christine is the picture of health now and has gone back to get her master's degree. A "partial match" bone marrow transplant saved her life. Her blood type was changed to his - I had no idea they could even do that. Clearly more research on the causes of Autism/Aspergers needs to be done.

The article that pnwmom referenced is worth reading all the way through, IMO.

[TrogL]

88. "could be a connection"

That's the problem - and the core of the logical fallacy these people keep falling into.

They're muddling cause and effect.

I'm presuming this is yet another resurrection of the "leaky gut" thing which I believe has already been discredited.

I certainly have many digestive problems.
I drink waaaaay too much coffee.
Therefore coffee must have caused my Aspergers.

Therefore let's treat my Asperger's with Tums.

No, better than that. Let's repackage Tums as "Todd's magical Asperger's cure" and advertise it in the back of porn magazines.

...

By the way, the link to Christine's story makes no mention of "picture of health" - she appears to be dead.

[TrogL]

89. Errr...to actually address your issue

OK, so let's pretend that we have a gene that expresses itself by leaky gut and Aspergers, just like there's a gene that expresses itself as red hair and freckles. If we re-engineered the red-hair-freckles, presumably the freckles would melt away and the hair would turn dark - both express melanin. If you change the leaky-gut-asperger's gene (I"d be really surprised if it's just one) - then what? Massive reorganization of the lining of the stomach and complete re-wiring of the brain. Seems a bit drastic.

[condoleeza]

97. Yeah, just continue to be a drama queen. Lord help you you should do further investigation...

[condoleeza]

90. Perhaps you need to be a member of her blog to see it, other than that, I can't see why you would

believe she is dead. Just Google her, OK? She's going to be really sad when I tell her she's dead. She's under the illusion that since her bone marrow transplant she is considered 100% cancer free. My daughter is going to have to run next door and check on her. Why, just last Friday she posted this on her blog and now she's dead, Jesus, this just ruins my whole day:

"I am THRILLED to announce that I've been selected as one of this year's Perpetual Scholarship recipients by "CANCER FOR COLLEGE." Yay! :)

I will be speaking at this year's annual fundraiser event next Friday, September 18. Will Ferrell will present the awards. It's a great honor.
Please come and share this very special night and support a great cause!

Information can be found at the website here: http://www.cancerforcollege.org"

Since my last response to you I have looked at what you have posted previously about this on DU and had not before seen your posts on this thread: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=387x1008 because I actually CARE about trying to find answers to life's little problems, and I was thinking that CraftyGal must be a truly understanding woman and I DO love research. So, in spite of my earlier comment about being done with this with you, and in spite of what you believe is a genetic cause that is irreversible, I still have hope that you may actually learn some socialization skills in regards to this topic.

I never intended to go into the autism spectrum area when I posted this thread. I was simply asking for input and have gotten some good comments. I don't feel your sarcasm is warranted, but I don't live in your shoes. If I hadn't been open to "alternative therapies" I would disabled - plain and simple. If you want to believe that all the research that has been done already is where research should stop - fine. I'm not willing to stop there and I think that what Dr. Herbert is doing is fantastic and could have valuable results.

When you react with anger and skepticism to any new ideas, when you use sarcasm to make your point, you cut off communication and an ability to learn. I don't see this as advantageous to anyone, certainly not to you. And again, clearly you have been through some shit or you wouldn't be so pissed off. I am just looking for answers, I'm not selling shit on the back of porn magazines. I don't buy into "miracle cures". If you want to discuss this further, I suggest we do it through PM's OK?

[pnwmom]

95. The blog works perfectly fine. What an inspiring story. I think the problem was that

trogl skimmed it way too quickly. Near the top of the blog, Christine paid a tribute to a friend named Michelle, who had died.

[TrogL]

99. I apologize for lashing out - I just get so frustrated

by charlatans (all claiming advanced medical degrees and associations with hospitals) selling snake oil and people buying it who should know better.

Ironically, snake oil probably contains lots of Omega 3 fatty acids but it's still not going to cure autism, at least by it self.

My position is based upon the theory that the brain (other than slowly dying) remains pretty much it its final form after maturation. New research has been released indicating that this may not be true:

http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/birdbrain.html

No, I'm not a bird brain, but I do have a special talent called "absolute pitch", which birds also do (maybe I DO have a bird brain) and I've been involved with several studies with researchers exploring the links between the two. I joke that I've got frequency tables where my socialization scripts are supposed to stored.

If we can grow new brain cells AND somehow find a way to provide the genetic material so the brain knows how to create the social and face-recognition areas AND there's room in the cranium for it (the researcher we've been arguing about notes auties have larger brains than normal) this may well be a boon for autie/Aspie kids.

I'm not sure what good it's going to do with a old fogey like me - I've got a lifetime of social experience to catch up on. A few years ago my boss sat me down and laboriously taught me the "elevator script", "good morning, how are you" and "how about them Miami Dolphins", which I still find an effort to remember.

What was my name again?

[condoleeza]

100. I love anyone with passion, TrogL, & can only imagine your frustrations with

what are considered by the mainstream as deficits. Clearly you are someone who cares about people and I can only try to understand your frustration with medical research and all the people who hawk miracle cures, as I've also been there myself, as has my husband who has an extreme case of ADHD, as do both his parents and his sister. I have Attention Surplus Disorder, so we are a good match, but it is not w/o it's frustrations, as what is logical to me interferes with the script he needs to organize his life and makes no sense to me. BUT, he is also a miracle man at his job, and is loved by everyone he knows. It isn't easy for him, he certainly has some deficits for organization, and is often at odds with his supervisors, but he is passionate about his job and can focus completely on what is right and necessary to do, and he cares and he is a great partner to me. We all have special talents, who knows how or why we have them. I have often asked the question of people whose lives mimic mine if they could take a pill and go back and correct the life they were given and start over at what is considered "normal" would they? Most would not - it is who we are. We all are only the conglomeration of our life experience and if we could rewrite that script and could eliminate things we love and things we hate, would we? I still am undecided, as I know that many of my good qualities were only developed BECAUSE of my experiences in life.

I don't know if you saw this, which just came out today: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/09/090916133521.htm I have also seen articles where sight has been restored by genetic intervention. Christine would be dead w/o genetic intervention. Dr. Herbert is one who is willing to work "outside the box" and maybe her focus will find keys and maybe it won't, but I love that she is trying. Maybe genetic research can find the answers. One can only hope.

There are "keys" to everything that ails us and bottom line is that the money spent on research has largely been spent on managing symptoms and not finding a cure. If what my generation is having to deal with is environmentally caused, if the autism spectrum is environmentally caused, I just HOPE that there are scientists out there who will continue to search for answers. Maybe our ancestors died of all of these recently diagnosed illnesses like MS, Parkinsons, Fibromyalgia and many others who are diagnosed via a "rule out" diagnosis, but maybe they were all poisoned, I have no idea. All I know is what I have personally had to deal with and every part of me believes it is environmentally caused.

My family left Minnesota when I was 3. They left because of Monsanto, and I won't go into detail, but suffice it to say that banks loaned monies for the next years crops and Monsanto was "in charge" and when their crops failed, well they were fucked. Their fields were poisoned, they couldn't pay their loans, they were foreclosed on. I may be wrong, but considering the national statistics for autoimmune disease that rise from the heartland, I believe that the genetics that my parents passed on to all of us, that we passed on to our children, were completely fucked up by the toxins. Jesus, I could write a book about my own family and the tragedies then and now. It just doesn't end, we pass it on and I have passed it on with my own kids. Maybe my daughter will find a key. And maybe we can all get better.

I am really curious about the studies you were involved in regarding absolute pitch. I know that brain cell growth is age related, as the brain pretty well reaches it's peak at a young age, but maybe for future generations, this pruning can be interrupted and built on via genetic research and intervention.

Frankly at this point, I have more confidence in my own research from all sources than I do in anything my PCP might recommend. My PCP is young, one would hope she has learned new research, but the reality is that it is ME who has diagnosed my own illnesses and I have been right for the last 20 years. A 15 minute OV will only result in a prescription and the reality is that they don't have the time to care.

[pnwmom]

94. Trogl, if you have many digestive problems, I hope you've had

tests for anti-gliadin and anti-endomysial antibodies, as I did. Since you are an adult, I doubt that eliminating gluten would have any effect on your Aspergers; but it would be worth going off gluten (and probably dairy, since gluten sensitivity leads to lactose intolerance) to clear up your digestive problems.

[TrogL]

98. Already done most of that

I've got the milk drops and I've cut way back on wheat products, particularly store-bought. The big muffins they sell at the local big-box grocery store just about put me in the hospital until I figured out what the problem was.

I'm NOT giving up my coffee.

[pnwmom]

93. Wrong. You need to study some history of science.

Scientists develop a hypothesis, often by looking at data they already have. Then they conduct studies to test the hypothesis. That is what she's doing now.

[Systematic Chaos]

2. Many auto-immune diseases can be traced directly to consumption of cow's milk baby formula.

This video is over an hour, but Dr. McDougall is my hero. I'm successfully dropping more than 50% of my body weight and feel better than I have in years since switching to a fully vegan, plant-based diet 3 months ago. I have absolutely no desire at all to consume dairy or animal products of any sort now.

This video is a long one, but it is tremendously educational, as are Dr. McDougall's many books and other videos free on the web or for purchase. This one especially documents the direct correlation between dairy consumption and many auto-immune diseases including MS and Type I diabetes among many others.

If anyone wants to flame me, please watch this first:

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-2348910096409126100#

[Bumblebee]

3. so happy for you,now you will live forever, unlike the rest of us --

and all because of McDougall!!! And I DO have a beautiful bridge for sale as well. Quite cheap.

[auntAgonist]

23. Why the snark? He's found something that works

and I know how people can struggle.

Is it wrong to share what works for you?

Good luck selling your bridge.

:shrug:

aA

[Grinchie]

44. Or the milk from his RGBH treated Cows...

It's amazing how people can just immediately attack without any ammunition and thing they'll get away with it.

While I think that healthy, nutritional fats are key activators for vitamins and enzymes, I have to agree that Milk today is pretty crappy. It bears no resemblance to the Milk I grew up with as a child, which was delivered to our door from the Producer. It was Pasteurized I believe, but can't be sure.

However, it did separate out into cream and Whey, and it did go bad in about 3 days, unlike almost 2 weeks for the milk found in the Supermarket today.

Also, one book noted that the process of Homogenization alters the structure of the Fat in the milk into a dispersion of fat microspheres, and this is linked somehow to poor digestion. It's been a while since I read that.

Also, and this is the dirty little secret of milk, is that many times it is now shipped very long distances in Tankers, and to be safe, they will repasteurize the whole lot before stocking it on the shelf.

Well, sounds great right? Wrong. Bacteria are basically eating up the nutrients in the milk, excrete toxins and allergans into the milk. The Process kills the bacteria, and then you have their little corpses floating around, which are also toxic and allergenic.

Bacteria are a normal part of Milk. There is always something there, but the modern milk industry is quite less healthy than the old method of local farms, pasteurization and delivery that we had until the 70's.

Furthermore, the nutrition of the milk is directly affected by feedstock, and now that GMO Plastic feed, that cows won't eat if given a choice, now taint the milk with whatever toxins or antibiotic resistance traits held in the GMO feed.

All this leads to more toxic load, and more work for the body to clean up and fight off infection.

[Skittles]

31. LOL

I hear you Bumblebee :D

[Systematic Chaos]

54. And I said WHAT exactly to deserve your and their snarky bullshit?

Go on, answer me. Can you accomplish that in a straightforward and civil manner?

Who the fuck do I think I am trying to share some highly relevant and CORRECT information about serious flaws in the American diet and food supply, anyway?

:eyes:

[Systematic Chaos]

53. And you come here and label yourself a "progressive" by association.

Quite cheap.

Watch the damn video and THEN comment, or have yourself a nice, tall glas of STFU. It looks amazingly like cow pus -- er, milk.

[texastoast]

7. I believe it is based on genes

It is common for other people to never have troubles with dairy (think of Julia Child and all those cigarettes and cheese). But if vegan works for you and makes you feel better (lacto-ovo vegetarian works very well for me), then that is what you should do to stay healthy.

[tabatha]

14. DId you know that what you eat can affect your genes.

SO the people who say genes and the people who say diet are both correct.

How well you sleep affects stem cell activity as well, which requires melatonin in your body (turned on when you sleep).

[JustAnotherGen]

34. True

A.S. is genetic based. My Great Grandfather developed it on the battle field in France - and I developed it (strong gene presence) this year.

[Hannah Bell]

10. cow's milk baby formula? when was this?

[Fridays Child]

16. I come from lactose tolerant northern European stock (I've had my mtDNA analyzed).

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/6397001.stm

"It's likely that the gene variant arose in one individual somewhere in northern Europe, and was such an advantage, it spread quickly.

"This is probably the single most advantageous gene trait in humans in the last 30,000 years."

...

Anna Denny, a scientist with the British Nutrition Foundation, said 'lactase deficiency' affected about 5% of white British people, and a larger proportion of those from some ethnic minorities.

In some parts of the world, such as Asia and Africa, the vast majority of people are lactose intolerant to some degree.

[elehhhhna]

35. actually they claim that tolerating milk was " an adventageous"genetic trait.

Dr Mark Thomas, from UCL, said: "The ability to drink milk is the most advantageous trait that's evolved in Europeans in the recent past.

"Although the benefits of milk tolerance are not fully understood, they probably include the advantage of a continuous supply compared with the 'boom and bust' of seasonal crops, its nourishing qualities, and the fact that, unlike stream water, it's uncontaminated with parasites, making it safer.

"All in all, the ability to drink milk gave some early Europeans a big survival advantage."

[Fridays Child]

4. An overwhelmed immune system can do nothing but turn on itself, in its attempt to ward off...

...that which has put it under siege. This entire country needs a sea change dietary overhaul, for starters. And that will happen only when government policy supports consumer well-being instead of corporate profit. But our fascist political system is so pervasive, so deeply embedded, that even if the media lie machine fell silent, today, Americans would be hard-pressed to see the proverbial forest for the trees.

[kimmerspixelated]

8. True,

So much of Big Pharma and the media go hand and hand. Brainwashing BS about the only way to cure or treat anything is by buying more drugs. At least everyone seems to embrace the fact that Sunshine/Vit D3 is good preventative and curative medicine!

[condoleeza]

13. Agreed, and hopefully that will change, I'm not banking on it

[Fridays Child]

19. We have to make it happen, and we can.

A great recent example of the power of informed consumers is the huge number of dairy producers who have stopped using bovine growth hormone treatments on their livestock. And what makes this victory so great is the fact that the industrial food sector's typical response to problems they've caused, in their blind pursuit of profit over people, is not to stop doing what causes the problem but, instead, to add a whole new chemical, substance, or action.

Look at how the beef industry responded to e coli outbreaks. It was discovered that taking the cattle off of corn and putting them back on grass, for a week before slaughter, would eradicate upwards of 80% of the e coli. So, knowing that, did they discontinue the corn diet for that final week? Nope. They decided to just irradiate the meat, instead.

Similarly, the dairy industry could have hunkered down in their Frankensteinian labs and come up with something to mitigate the effect of bovine growth hormone, thereby allowing them to continue to grow cows more rapidly than they are evolutionarily designed to grow. But they didn't. Instead, they're doing the right thing--well, many of them, anyway.

Now, I'm not saying that the dairy industry isn't guilty of a multitude of other abhorrent practices. But, in this case, they're actually responding appropriately to a problem of their own device.

And I don't think that we can discount the power of digital communication, here, either. Would the information necessary to rapidly change our dairy buying habits have been disseminated so quickly, if not for the Internet? I doubt it.

Thank you, once again, Al Gore!

[Chemisse]

22. There's only one reason they are doing the right thing

Economic pressure.

When all this started, only one milk was listed as being bovine hormone free at my supermarket. So that's the one I bought. I was not the only one, by any means.

Around that time, there was a furor about such labeling, with the milk industry trying to prohibit it. That didn't work and now nearly all the brands of milk that I see are labeled as bovine hormone free.

So it was not the milk industry as a whole trying to do the right thing.

[Fridays Child]

26. That is my point: consumer power.

Their response to that pressure was approriate, though, and that is not always the case. Remember that there was also considerable pressure on those beef producers to get e coli out of their products. And e coli has, indeed, been reduced, by means of the industry's response to that pressure. But the devil is always in the details, isn't it?

[Chemisse]

32. The beef growers are more unified perhaps

If one of them advertised as having used practices to reduce E.Coli, that would put pressure on the others. These are the guys (I would bet against any women at the heads of their companies) who opposed testing fallen cattle for Mad Cow Disease.

[Grinchie]

46. The Power of the Purse is stronger than any protest.

I always laugh when I hear people that are still buying into the fad of Artificial Sweeteners, because they haven't discovered Stevia, or actually believe that Splenda is good for you, and then complain that they cannot afford fresh, organic food.

My question is, "How can you NOT Afford to buy fresh organic food!?" It's like they don't think that a life spent Sick and Tired is more expensive in the long run.

I say, find the money by shutting off cable, sell the tv, break the cell phone contract, and start living life. Hang up the close on a clothes line, and stop using scented detergent.

Organic food is expensive becaue the plastic food is just more abundant, and the Farmer gets loans more easily than an Organic farmer will. The Ag system is titlted for heavy inputs, monocropping, and mechanization, which do much to destroy the soil and a healthy farm.

[condoleeza]

25. Clearly the food industry is having to pay attention to the "bad press",

and maybe digital communication is having a small effect in forcing the dairy industry to stop bad practices, but the reality is that the majority of my generation (I am 60) doesn't have the knowledge or skills or equipment to research on the internet. We are the baby-boomers who are "destroying the economy". I have read that over 80% of my generation is toxic because of heavy metal poisoning, which is why we have all these autoimmune diseases that cost a ridiculous amount of $ to treat UNSUCCESSFULLY when removing the toxins would likely eradicate much of it.

I have insurance through my husband, who works for a major City, it is the best insurance anyone in this country has and I STILL have to pay for ANY "ALTERNATIVE/EXPERIMENTAL" treatment, the only treatment that has helped me. It isn't covered by insurance, but it IS deductible as a legitimate expense on the MRProgram, so what does that tell you? It's a legitimate expense, but western med. and it's insurers have been able to keep any Naturopathic medicine deemed "experimental" and so it goes and will continue until health insurance in this country isn't linked to corporate profits.

I rarely eat beef, I cannot do dairy, except for yogurt. Lactase is my friend.

[Grinchie]

45. So true

The Iron Fist of the Government/Biotech Cabal is so strong, their a very little that can be done to fight the embedded anablers of the Corporate buck.

Michael Taylor and Tom Vilsack come to mind. Obama must be insane to think that he could appoint Michael Taylor to the USDA without losing massive amounts of supporters, but at this point, he has shown his Allegience to Corporate America and the almighty dollar.

[azul]

6. Looks like stuff may be messing with the regulation of gene expression:

The Revolution of Epigenetics in the Field of Autoimmunity

Abstract Autoimmunity is believed to develop when genetically predisposed individuals encounter epigenetic modifications in response to environmental factors. Recent advances in the understanding of epigenetic mechanisms, their contribution to the immune function, and to the development of autoimmunity are presented in this special issue of Clinical Reviews in Allergy and Immunology. Potential new therapeutic strategies and biomarkers are also addressed.

http://www.springerlink.com/content/l26062861h8j06p0/


There is a website devoted to epigenetic information and articles.

http://www.epidna.com/

[condoleeza]

15. Thank you for that information, I will keep on keeping on

[azul]

18. Epigenetic research shows great promise for cures and preventive actions

rather than the crazy way research is currently wasting people and money away chasing expensive treatments.

Medicare and healthcare spending projections are all about treatments too, and could be way off if many diseases were gone. An ounce of prevention should have been invested in - but this industry is way corrupt and overly greedy now to do the right things. Past time for a real change, lets get this rock rolling.

[condoleeza]

30. Agreed.

[condoleeza]

67. You might find some good information here, azul

I've continued to follow the discussion on this on HuffPo and this posting was particularly interesting regarding the use of LDN. Many people have posted about this as having been very helpful. I do not have the scientific background to digest what you posted a link to, but I will keep trying to understand it, hopefully with the help of my biologist daughter, as to the studies on epigenetics, as she is currently in pre-med.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dr-mark-hyman/autoimmune-disease-how-to_b_283707.html?page=4&show_comment_id=30904041#comment_30904041

These links within this post were very interesting: http://www.thorne.com/altmedrev/.fulltext/8/3/223.pdf

http://health.groups.yahoo.com/group/LDN_Information/

[gleaner]

9. I have a "cluster" of autoimmune .....

diseases. I have MS a progressive and destructive osteo arthritis with an elevated rheumatoid factor. It is not rehumatoid arthritis but it is inflammatory, painful and deforms the joints. I have type 2 Diabetes which according to many research studies is also an autoimmune disease. I have a diagnosed but unnamed condition on my tongue which causes splits, ulcers and blisters if I eat fruit, spices like cinnamon or foods prepared with vinegar. It is also very responsive to stress. I had a Neurologist once who told me that it is not unusual for some patients to develop groups of autoimmune disorders like I have.

I think mine can be traced way back to the 1940s when my mother conceived me and was pregnant with me. Unbeknown to us we were living not too far from military facilities where they were secretly dumping atomic wastes and other toxins. My mother received a class action lawsuit which was attempting to get treatment for individuals who lived in our area at that time who had not yet developed symptoms of autoimmune diseases, but who had been exposed as we had to the toxic wastes. For me it was too late. The lawsuit stated that people who had already developed symptoms to the conditions I have plus a constellation of others that I do not could not participate because the suit was attempting to obtain only preventative treatment and diagnostic testing if symptoms appeared.

I am not litigious, so that was alright, but it tended to confirm what I had suspected and what many other health professionals who work with MS suspect. MS and other autoimmune diseases are caused or impacted by environmental pollutants and toxic wastes. Mine would have been particularly bad because I was exposed while I was growing in my mother's womb and then for years afterward.

[condoleeza]

17. See my post #12 on this thread

Not knowing where you grew up, I wouldn't be surprised if it were Eastern Washington. I wrote on post #12 about my SIL's family but I also have a friend who grew up in Spokane, a family of 5 adopted children. So there is NO genetic link there. The adoptive father and 3 of the children have had different cancers. My friend had 2 different cancers and has MS and has been officially "disabled" for nearly 20 years.

The stress factor is interesting. My friend and I have had different & similar stressors, but they have presented similarly in relation to our autoimmune responses. In reviewing my own family medical history, having been born in Monsanto country in Minnesota, we have a LONG history of suicide and erratic behavior by members who were in pain. This history extended to my generation and siblings who were born there, but not raised there, which would echo your family having "not yet developed symptoms of autoimmune diseases, but who had been exposed as we had to the toxic wastes". While there are contributing things such as abuse, which may or may not be caused by being crazy because of toxins, my family history is so far out of the norm for this that we would skew any statistical data and I could write a book about that.

I'm not litigious either, but maybe we should be.

[gleaner]

48. Read Post #12 ..

and the two responses. I agree about the insurance industry. It is one of the things I feel most strongly about. We do need single payer. I would like to see that even more than a public option, but I have no hope that I will. Failing that, I want a public option. "Reform" is just more of the same.

In response to the post I am answering, I grew up in a suburb of Los Angeles. The two corporations named in the lawsuit were Rocketdyne and Hughes Aircraft, now both closed. Hughes closed in the 60s I believe and Rocketdyne somewhat later, leaving behind only their toxic memories.

As to my family, every one of us has type 2 Diabetes. My mother had the same type of arthritis as I do. My father, sister, brother and I have a congenital heart murmur with varying degrees of tachycardia. My mother had serious tachycardia which contributed to congestive heart failure. She died of a massive stroke in 2004 when her pacemaker threw off a clot. My husband and I had cared for her in the last years of her because she was terrified of convalescent hospitals and could not live alone. It was hard with the MS, but I still miss her terribly. My Dad died of massive heart attack in the 90s which was probably a result of hypertension and the diabetes which he had suffered for years. We all had or have hypertension treated by medication.

It sounds as if you lived a nightmare. I feel a great deal of empathy for you and hope that the quality of your life is better now. I appreciate the time and care you gave to this thread and your responses to all of us.

I think my family did suffer from the toxins as well. I know diabetes has an hereditary factor, but all of us? Even my mother developed it later in life. She had a goiter on her thyroid which had to be removed and several other surgeries while I was very young. My mother, sister and I all had fibroids which necessitated hysterectomies. Mine was precancerous. There were many other illnesses that I remember only poorly because I was the youngest; ten years younger than my youngest sibling and a lot of this took place before I was born or when I was small. I have known for years that industrial pollutants and a contaminated environment are lethal to the creatures which live in it and I have always been appalled by the governmental indifference that it encounters. They don't have to shoot us. Give us time and we will all simply live ourselves to death.

[condoleeza]

60. You have an amazing attitude about this, considering what your family has been through

Your family is so far out of the norm statistically that a person would have to be blind not to see that there have to be environmental causes. What I found interesting when I was being chelated is that the VA sent many patients to this clinic. Most were retired navy and had been exposed to lead in fuel and paint when repairing ships. So chelation is recognized as effective by our government already - they just don't apparently have any power of the insurance companies.

I am curious about your extended family - any relatives who grew up in another part of the country. Do they have the same issues? In my husband's family they don't. Another thing that his family shares is that both parents, my husband and his sister all have ADHD. The brother w/o it has a son with Aspergers, the sister with it does also.

Has anyone in your family ever had their hair tested for heavy metals?

[gleaner]

66. Thank You....

We have a large extended family who lives in Utah. They have had issues with goiters because in Utah there was no source of iodine to help prevent them. When they started using iodized salt the problems stopped. This seems to be true of the population of Utah at large and not only my family. There was diabetes as well, but it was much more scattered and random.

My Dad moved to California in 1939 to try to survive during the great depression and he brought our family members who were willing to leave Utah out one by one. Most chose to stay. Everyone was desperately poor, including my Mom and Dad until he began making a good living in construction as a carpenter. But I think we are the only family members who had such a number of illnesses and such relatively unusual illnesses. The California relatives died mostly of cancer. They were smokers and they succumbed to the kind of cancers that arise from smoking, so again that is what we assumed was the main causative factor. Most of them lived in an area near Ventura where there were not so many pollutants.

We never had any tests for heavy metals. It never occurred to us. I didn't begin thinking along those lines until my Mother and I read that lawsuit together. Then we discussed illnesses and she told me that I had never been really healthy. I caught things that other kids did not get and when I got something it was a lot worse for me. She said she was always afraid I wasn't going to make it. But I did and here I am.

You mentioned MRSA in your post. My husband nearly died of MRSA last year. It infected his blood and did major damage to his organs. He cannot walk without assistance anymore, and then only for short distances. I was and am terrified for him. I love him more than anything. We will be married for 35 years next month. He is frail and has to take a lot of medicines and of course his health insurance company tries to refuse him most of the care he needs. I am his caregiver and they will not allow any home health nursing as back up even though the policy mandates it. They simply refuse. Nothing I can say or do and nothing his doctors say or do can change their refusal to live up to their obligations. He has to spend a lot of time in a hospital bed and can't remember a lot of what the MRSA did. That is just as well. He had a terrible time and even now has to sleep on an oxygen machine to ease the strain on his heart, where a lot of the damage was done. I write this because the hospital told us that MRSA is "in the wild" now and not confined to medical facilities any more. It is as easy to catch as a cold or the flu from hand to hand contact. So many of these illnesses we have made and now have no idea how to deal with. The epidemiologist they called in could not trace the source of my husband's illness and while he was in ICU a 17 year old high school boy, an athlete, was brought in. He died of MRSA within three days of admittance. One of the doctors told us in a moment of stupidity. My husband didn't need to hear that at all.

So this is where we are now. If you want more details of the MRSA, or anything else just ask. It's OK to PM me or to post. I keep copies of my posts in my journal until I know if they are going to be answered or not. If they aren't I delete them, but I have one very detailed post about my husband's MRSA that I send out to members of Congress, the White House and other political people who need to be reminded that they are mortal, subject to the same illnesses as the rest of us and should be thinking more closely about our lives than the gain of a few wealthy individuals and the insurance companies. I don't know if it does any good, but I feel bound to keep trying.

Thanks again for your interest and kindness, and you take care too. You and your loved ones have had a tough road to travel as well.

[kimmerspixelated]

11. Almost everything is helped by a good cleanse

or detox especially initially. Detoxing by chelation is one way. The newest thing seems to follow the trend of raw foods.You can chelate, but to make it stick, you must purify your diet for maintenance.

[condoleeza]

20. i have been gluten free for 2 months now and eat mostly raw foods, I am working with a naturopath

and am getting prolotherapy for my joint pain. A detox doet didn't work for my brother. but I continue to try diet and chelation. I am not in pain, but probably weigh what I did at the age of 12. I certainly don't profess to know all the answers, it is a daily struggle, I just have no faith in western medicine anymore.

[KT2000]

21. mainstream medicine subscribes

to the very scientific theory that you can adulterate the atmosphere with over 100,000 chemicals (that are in commercial use today) and it will have no affect whatsoever on the functioning of the human body.

This is true because chemicals are minimally tested - death and cancer - if at all. Many of our chemicals were "tested" in labs that issued results that were fraudulent but were "grandfathered" in and deemed safe.

Chemicals are tested as if a person will have an exposure to one chemical in their lifetime so exposure limits could be set for the workplace - there are no exposure limits for the general public in consumer goods.

We are all part of a human experiment - gone bad.

[truedelphi]

27. Thanks for the info on chemical testing n/t

[condoleeza]

28. And we are all sick because of this "human experiment"

the most recent research says that one out of 7 are gluten intolerant. What the hell have we done to the DNA in our genetically modified foods?

[Grinchie]

47. I have an asthma attack whenever the Dryer vent pumps out scent from detergent.

The stuff they put in Laundry Detergent to make is smell like cherries is so strong, it can linger over the neighborhood for hours. Since it is a "Consumer Good" they do not need to divulge what it is made of.. Only labeled "Scent".

It turns out this stuff is based on Acetone in most cases, and it vaporises and contaminates huges quantities of air.

The amazing thing about it is, that unscented detergent costs more!

[JustAnotherGen]

33. My Auto Immune disease

Is genetic. You must have the HLA-B27 gene for it to develop. It was first identified/named during World War I - soldiers on the battlefield. It's triggered by an injury and then you nose dive into pain.

That said - I do believe in the power of organic food and filtered water. Nanoproxen (sp?), Ibuprogen, etc. etc. They don't begin to touch what a mostly raw food diet can do for you. It won't cure it - but it will greatly reduce the symptoms.

[condoleeza]

36. I was tested for HLA-B27 and it was negative

Believe me, I've been through the gamut of any tests that relate to pain and was hoping this could explain it. Cancer is caused by mutation of genes, what mutates them if it isn't environment? My daughter is a molecular biologist, she worked on the genome project. Nobody really knows what the cause of the autoimmune disorders is. I am down to eating raw roods, no gluten, no dairy and weigh less than I did when I was 12, I am slowly disappearing.

[JustAnotherGen]

38. I have

Ankylosing Spondylitis.

It is very specific. I call it Hunchback Syndrome. ;-) A very gentle hug to you . . . try the book Overcoming Arthritis through Food. And make sure you are completely staying away from Night Shades. No tomato, eggplant, squash, zucchini, etc. etc.

And I was there. 4/5 months ago getting out of bed was a half hour task. A.S. is a type of R.A. that goes after your spine. Parts of my spine have 'fused' since the beginning of the year. So definately a gentle hug and a core definition of what is making you sick so it can stopped. {{{condoleeza}}}}

Look up Reiter's Syndrome for more on A.S. my great grandfathers was triggered by trench rot and subsequent surgery (removing toes on his right foot) after a long long stay at Verdun. French Army sent him back to Marseille wherre his mother could 'feed' him back to health.

[condoleeza]

41. I learned about Reiter's Syndrome when I was researching

because I had had a very nasty bout of food poisoning and there is a connection, which is why I asked for the test.

I'm so sorry to hear about your symptoms and send you a gentle hug. If I cut out everything from my diet that "could" be a cause, I would starve to death, and I am rapidly approaching that. No night shades, no gluten, no soy, no dairy. I'm a caterer - I've become the person I hate.

[JustAnotherGen]

50. Ah

I'm there with youo. Try some Scharr macaroni with fresh garlic and extra virgin olive oil. It sticks to your ribs! :pals: And get acquainted with my friend Quinoa. It's a protein laden gluten free grain. Little Vanilla soy milk in it and it's fantastic. You must eat!

[condoleeza]

61. Quinoa is practically what I live on

Not familiar with Scharr macaroni, but if it's gluten free - I'm there. I've never tried quinoa with vanilla soy milk, I make it into salad, using the red quinoa. Not sure if it's okay to post recipes here, but I'll give it a shot and hope it is:

QUINOA SALAD

Ingredients:

* 1 C quinoa – I prefer red quinoa
* 2 C water
* 2 small tomatoes finely diced
* 1 small red onion finely chopped
* 1 medium zucchini /or/ Persian cucumber - cut into small cubes
* 1/3 C dried raisins
• 1/3 C dried cranberries
• 1/4 C toasted sunflower seeds
• 1/4 C toasted pine nuts
* 1/3 C crushed walnuts
* 1 bunch (about 1 C) cilantro leaves chopped
• 1 bunch (about 1/3 C) mint leaves chopped
• 1/4 C fresh basil
• 1 C Cheese – cut into small cubes – I prefer Sharp White Cheddar – cheese is optional

Dressing:

* 1/2 C fresh lemon juice
* 1/4 C of olive oil
* 2-3 cloves of garlic – finely minced
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1/3 C Balsamic Vinegar – Napa Valley Naturals Grand Reserve (aged 18 yrs) is worth the price.

Directions:

1. Put the quinoa in a cloth jelly strainer and thoroughly rinse with hot water to remove any bitter flavor.
2. In a medium saucepan, bring the water and quinoa to a boil over high heat. Reduce the heat to low, cover, and simmer until the quinoa is tender and the water is mostly absorbed, about 15 minutes. Let stand covered until all water is absorbed, then cool completely.
3. Toast the nuts until slightly golden and fragrant.
4. In a small bowl, whisk the lemon juice, oil, garlic, salt & vinegar.
5. In your salad bowl, mix all ingredients.
6. Pour the dressing over the quinoa mixture and toss gently to mix.
7. Cover and refrigerate for at least 30 minutes to 1 hour before serving.
8. This salad is even better made the day before. Great for dinner, parties, or potluck
9. Substitute any of the dried fruits or nuts with ones you like.

[FirstLight]

37. Oh dear, should I read the link?

I have Psoriatic arthritis, meaning that when my immune system gets tired of attacking my skin...it goes for the joints too.

supposedly, it is genetic...my older sister has it too and is much worse... i think my dad is the one that passed it forward, and there are a few theories about THAT too. Dad was in the Korean war, and i found out that he was repeatedly exposed to worse chemicals that Agent Orange when the army dusted the camp for mosquitoes, etc... THAT could have caused the genetic damage. OR it is just a recessive gene that has come from the whole family tree...but i can;t find out much about that either.

also, in the research i have done... i found that the gene usually stays 'non-activated" , but can be triggered by a stressful event (car accident, stress, divorce, etc)...and there is also a theory that auto-immune diseases are brought on by certain immunizations...because they directly attack and trigger the immune response.
there are lot of doctors and nurses who THINK they know what auto-immune issues are about, but unless you have lived with it, you have no idea
....
i have been told there is NO correlation between diet and psoriasis by the hospital dietician - which is funny because I managed my illness and stayed in remission for over a year by eating macro-biotically...

i have also been told it is a result of being depressed...
...not that i MAY be depressed by my skin bleeding and peeling off me like a leper and the pain involved?

they finally got me on Enbrel this spring...and though I am looking and feeling great, I have had a cold that won't go away for a month and can't get well! haven't taken a dose of the immuno-suppressants in 3 weeks, but nothing is helping the sinuses...

....so i may die of the flu - but at least i'll be a good loking corpse!

[condoleeza]

42. Well, I would like to laugh at your last line here

but I identify too well with everything else you've written. There have been times I've been unable to walk because the skin on my feet was peeling in sheets, when my hands were almost that bad. Stress is definitely a contributor for me. I was told I had psoriatic arthritis by the head dermatologist at our medical school. He was corrected by a resident who said it was eczema, after being treated for nearly 2 years. There is a test for PA, I hope you've had it.

[pnwmom]

39. GLUTEN and other food allergies/intolerances.

Celiac disease/gluten intolerance raises the risk factor for all auto-immune diseases, and it's much more common than many doctors realize. It also can occur without any G.I. symptoms (i.e., without classic Celiac symptoms). IMHO, anyone with an auto-immune disorder should ask their doctor if they should be tested for it. And anyone with auto-immune disorders running in their family should also think about being tested for gluten intolerance.

[condoleeza]

65. Testing negative for celiac disease doesn't mean you aren't gluten intolerant

I learned this this year. I tested negative, as did my daughter. She is on the SCDiet (specific carbohydrate), much more strict than mine and is doing great. I am slowly headed that direction. When the test came back negative I kept on eating gluten. My naturopath thought I understood that I shouldn't be - so now I'm not, he believes that 1 in 7 actually should not eat gluten.

I don't know if you saw this recent study, which is fascinating, as it used blood that had been frozen since the 50's. http://www.startribune.com/lifestyle/health/49558522.html

[pnwmom]

71. I agree. My daughter didn't test positive on blood tests (as I did),

but she did test positive for antibodies in a stool sample. Some doctors think that the stool sample results can't be accurate because they find so many positive reactions (something like 10% of those tested). I don't have a problem believing that the number is that high, however. My daughter hadn't had the typical G.I. symptoms, but when she went gluten free, her liver enzymes improved and her cholesterol dropped 30 points. Clearly, whether she has classic Celiac or not, gluten isn't good for her.

Fortunately for me, they were giving less specific blood tests when I was tested -- tests for anti-gliadin antibodies. Otherwise, I might still be struggling with all the symptoms -- both G.I. and neurological -- that "magically" cleared up when I eliminated gluten from my diet.

[Joe Bacon]

40. Been 12 years since diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis

And on my 50th birthday I was diagnosed with diabetes. It's a 1-2 punch that loves to mess with me. I tried chelation and it didn't do anything. Sure wish they would hurry up with stem cells!

[condoleeza]

43. I'm sorry, Joe, this all just sucks

[KT2000]

49. sorry to hear this

until stem cell research comes up with something you may want to try cleaning your environment of toxic chemicals. For some people this can help tone down the body's hyper-response found in auto-immune conditions. We do not realize it but our bodies are constantly having to handle so many chemicals we come across in our daily living. This can amp up some systems and deplete others.

First of all make you bedroom as sparse and chemical free as possible. for example - get rid of as much formaldehyde in the home as possible. Formaldehyde is found in particle board furniture, in cleaning products, in just about all fabrics, in air fresheners, perfumes, some kitty litters, carpets and more. Roundup (glyphosate) breaks down into formaldehyde.

Get rid of any air fresheners. Wash you clothes in an unscented, natural types detergents.

When you learn about what chemicals are in what products, you can minimize your exposure and maybe you will feel less pain. I hope.

[Joe Bacon]

51. I'm in a rent controlled apartment.

Sorta difficult to do everything there but I've already eliminated what I can from your list. Whomever called the 50s the Golden Years is full of CENSORED.

[KT2000]

56. Here is a website

that may help you figure out problematic exposures.
It is for people with chemical sensitivity but the info is good for everyone.
This doctor is one of the few brave souls who advocates for the health of her patients against tremendous odds - a very high quality person.

My best to you.

[TrogL]

52. ...and the homeopathic movement is controlled by quacks

...who couldn't do the stats of a coin toss correctly, nevermind a controlled medical study.

[kimmerspixelated]

59. You obviously are completely biased.

[TrogL]

62. OK, show me a homeopathic cure backed by a properly performed research study

*listens to crickets*

[TrogL]

84. Still waiting....

...geese honking in the distance...

[kimmerspixelated]

96. Don't be an ass, I had to leave,

plus, I don't just produce on demand. Plus,folks with dial-up are not very motivated to pander to the "all natural cures are snake oil" peeps.

[joewilsonwhat]

55. Gluten

Is one of the worst

[tama]

68. Antibiotics and sterilized environment

There are more microbes living with human body than cells and very little is known of all of their functions. Modern people and Americans especially use and eat (in their meat) incredible amounts of antibiotics that kill hordes of our microbe companions, causing terrible imbalances and all kinds of problems.

Human immune system is wise and efficient with millenia of experience of adapting to various natural environments. Modern medicine has poor understanding of it, of our holistic healing ability, and thus causes more problems than it cures.