At the most basic level, autoimmune disease is what happens when your body’s immune system turns against your body and starts attacking it. For a variety of reasons, it mistakes something happening inside of your body as a threat and starts attacking your cells.
When your immune system is working properly, it recognizes the difference between foreign cells and bacteria, and healthy things your body wants to keep. It fights off the bad stuff from the outside and protects the good things you need.
An autoimmune disease is when your immune system thinks that a part of your body is a foreign threat. It can attack your body whether it’s your foot, a hand, your skin, etc. In response, it sends its army of cells against it, which can pose several significant health challenges.
Understanding what an autoimmune disease is and how it works will help you spot the symptoms and find appropriate treatments in time. Here is some basic information on autoimmune diseases and how they work.
Why Your Immune System Attacks
What causes your own body’s immune system to attack your body? It’s certainly strange, and for decades, autoimmune diseases have presented medical professionals with interesting challenges.
Some of the more common autoimmune diseases include conditions like lupus, diabetes, multiple sclerosis, etc. We know that certain diseases attack people or demographics with more prevalence, but there isn’t a lot of data to show exactly why autoimmune diseases happen. Some people think it’s due to things like diet, but strong links haven’t been fully established yet.
Some Common Autoimmune Diseases
Let’s take a look at some of the more common autoimmune diseases that we know about.
Diabetes – Type 1 diabetes is an autoimmune disease that affects a lot of people. This is different from type 2, in which the body’s insulin production shuts down because of what is typically an unhealthy lifestyle. In people with type 1 diabetes, the immune system attacks the pancreas, destroying its ability to produce insulin and the body’s ability to manage blood sugar levels properly. Eventually, high blood sugar can trigger organ failure, blindness, and nerve damage.
Psoriasis
Usually, your body sheds old cells and grows new ones when necessary. It maintains a sort of equilibrium with regards to the number of cells it has. People who have psoriasis, though, create too many cells. When they build up too greatly in one space, the skin becomes red and inflamed. It looks like there are sores on the skin. The scalp and other sensitive areas are typically where breakouts occur. Psoriasis in the joints can be very painful and there is often associated swelling in affected areas.
Arthritis
Many people don’t know this, but rheumatoid arthritis is an autoimmune disease. It’s not just your joints getting older. Your immune system attacks the joints, usually in your hands, causing stiffness and pain. This is different from osteoarthritis, common joint pain in older people. Rheumatoid arthritis affects people as young as twenty years old.
Multiple Sclerosis
MS is a condition that damages the protective coating around cells in your nervous system. In what is usually a slow spread, MS begins to disrupt the messages between your spinal cord and your brain, damaging your ability to control limbs and motor functions.
When to Seek Medical Attention
How can you tell whether you have the beginnings of an autoimmune disease? Frequently, the symptoms start small and can be difficult to spot. People easily dismiss them as a one-off situation. However, you should learn the symptoms and seek medical attention as soon as possible if you suspect an autoimmune issue. Symptoms can include:
Difficulty concentrating
Unexplained rashes
Hair loss
Aches
Persistent fatigue
Redness or swelling
Of course, many of these symptoms seem like they’re mundane. That’s the trick with many autoimmune diseases. They creep up on you but the symptoms get progressively worse.
Peptides & Autoimmune Treatments
Many autoimmune diseases are treated with what are called glucocorticoids. They help fight inflammation in the body, but can often have serious side effects. One challenge with these drugs is that the doses have to be very high, and the patient has to take them for a long time. Eventually, the body builds a dependence on the medicine. Ipamorelin CJC-1295 & Ipamorelin blend for sale is a peptide that, in research done on animal models, has been shown to reverse or reduce the side effects of glucocorticoid use. It does this by triggering an increased release of growth hormone in the body. Ipamorelin, and a similar peptide, sermorelin, have similar results. The difference, however, is that ipamorelin results in a higher spike in natural hGH secretions that last a relatively short amount of time. Sermorelin delivers less dramatic but more consistent results.