Maria is a 36 year old lady who came to see me for help with her immune system. She suffered with a great deal of allergies and only recently was diagnosed with the autoimmune condition lupus. Maria had been tired for a long time, she got aches and pains in many joints, and she got swollen ankles. Her doctor ordered a blood test two months ago and that’s when lupus was discovered. Maria has not started any medication for the lupus. She wanted to see me first and find out if natural solutions are available.

Maria had put up with the allergies for many years, but the recent diagnosis of an autoimmune condition frightened her and she wanted to know if there was a natural way to help her immune system. Maria’s allergies included allergic rhinitis, sinusitis and itchy spots on her skin in various parts of her body. She used anti-histamines when the symptoms became really bad, but the symptoms never went away fully.

Maria has a busy life. She works as a retail manager, is on her feet all day and has a lot of responsibilities. She does try to eat well and she exercised at least 3 times a week. However, there is so much junk food at work. Each employee brings their favorite candy to work and they all share. Maria can resist at the beginning of the week, but by Wednesday she is usually too tired to fight her cravings.

Sleep is something Maria often struggled with. She went to bed very late each night and woke early. Her sleep quality was pretty terrible too, so she never felt refreshed and in fact felt increasingly exhausted in the mornings. Maria found that exercise helped reduce the joint pain and ankle swelling that were symptoms of lupus. She resented having to drag herself to do it because of the extreme fatigue she suffered with.

A blood test showed that Maria was low in vitamin D and zinc. This weakened her immune system, made her more prone to infections and inflammation.

My recommendations for my patient

I started by focusing on improving Maria’s gut health. Approximately 70 to 80 percent of the body’s immune system is found in the intestines. We cannot make significant improvements in health until we fix her digestion. I asked her to remove grains and dairy products, sugar and legumes from her diet, as these foods are difficult to digest and can have an irritating effect on the intestines, thus promoting “leaky gut syndrome”.

  • I asked Maria to base her diet on vegetables, salads, animal protein, fruit, and healthy fats. I gave Maria Digestive Enzymes capsules to help her extract more nutrients from her foods and supplements. For fast acting symptomatic relief of her allergic symptoms I gave her Allergy Relief tablets. They helped to reduce the itchy spots on her skin and cleared her nose and sinuses well so she could achieve a better quality sleep.
  • To help her sleep quality improve, I gave Maria a magnesium supplement to relax her nervous system and muscles and enable her to achieve a deeper, more refreshing sleep. I also gave her supplements of vitamin D and zinc to correct the nutrient deficiencies.
  • Maria did need more help to heal her leaky gut, so I used glutamine and BactoClear capsules. Glutamine heals and repairs the lining of the gut and BactoClear kills harmful gut bacteria and yeast that are typically overgrown in autoimmune or allergic patients.

I saw Maria for a follow up consultation 5 weeks later. She looked so much calmer and well rested. She said she finally felt in control of her health and like the efforts she was putting in are being rewarded.

This time I wanted to work on Maria’s liver, as with anyone who suffers from allergies or autoimmune disease. When the immune cells produce a flood of antibodies and inflammatory chemicals, they end up at the liver. It is the liver’s job to cleanse and filter all this type of debris from the bloodstream. The liver can quickly become overwhelmed with these toxins and this can cause inflammation and damage to liver cells. Many of our patients with autoimmune disease have a fatty liver and this is due to the inflammatory chemicals in the bloodstream and the toxins coming from the intestines. Therefore improving liver health is critically important in all immune system disorders. I suggested that Maria use LivaTone Plus as it would support her liver.

The above statements have not been evaluated by the FDA and are not intended to diagnose, treat or cure any disease.