Combat Autoimmune Challenges Naturally

Posted on: December 23, 2020

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Welcome everyone to this talk entitled “Combat Autoimmune Challenges Naturally.” My name is Dr. Trish Murray, and I am a physician, author, and the Health Catalyst Speaker.

Functional medicine is often referred to as “the future of healthcare,” yet it is still widely unknown what sets this practice apart from the conventional healthcare provided today. The main differentiating principles of functional medicine include:

It is a model of personalized care.
It is focused on the causes of discomfort versus just looking at the symptoms.
It is a deep-seated trust in the individual’s body to self-regulate.

Functional medicine is revolutionizing the medical field by empowering patients to better understand imbalances in their bodies, how these imbalances affect their health, and the solutions available to support the normal healing mechanisms within their body. Above all, the functional medicine field helps redefine how we think of disease by providing a more productive framework to achieve optimal health.

Now, the Merriam-Webster dictionary defines disease as, “a condition of the living animal or plant body or one of its parts that impairs normal functioning and is typically manifested by distinguishing signs and symptoms.” Now, the current healthcare model is disease focused. You feel sick, therefore you go to a doctor for a prescription to address the symptoms related to your disease. You are then told you are healed because, for example, your cough is gone, or your nausea subsided. Does this sound familiar? This is great for short-term issues as you are able to mask your discomfort fairly quickly. However, for more long-term issues, this medical model fails on addressing the real issues of disease.

Functional medicine practitioners, however, recognize that disease is the result of underlying causes, imbalances, and dysfunctions in the various bodily systems. When thinking of disease as a result from an issue rather than the issue itself, treatment can be administered in a way that provides long term relief, promotes sustainable health, and empowers the patient in their individualized healing process.

Now, autoimmune disorders are diseases of the immune system. They manifest in different ways, but all behave very similarly in the sense that the immune system becomes confused and begins to attack the body’s healthy tissues mistaking them for foreign invaders. Due to the lack of understand of these diseases, conventional medicine works to treat the particular organs affected rather than viewing them all for what they are – diseases of the immune system. Therefore, there is no unified branch of medicine for these autoimmune conditions. Instead, patients are given referrals to specialists that are trained in specific organ systems such as a patient with Crohn’s disease is sent to a gastroenterologist. Someone with rheumatoid arthritis is sent to a rheumatologist. A person with multiple sclerosis is sent to a neurologist. This strategy, of course, brings patients further away from treating their body’s immune system, resulting in a vicious cycle.

It is common for those that suffer from autoimmune challenges to see a number of specialists for each of their symptoms. Some specialists were listed in the previous examples, but others even include endocrinologists, nephrologists, hematologists, and even dermatologists. While these professionals provide an important service and are adequately knowledgeable in their system’s specialty, there is a good chance they are not equipped to address the need for truly supporting your immune system. Most of the medications used to treat autoimmune conditions focus on blocking the immune system’s overall function.

Autoimmune disorders come in all different forms including:

Type 1 diabetes
Rheumatoid arthritis
Lupus
Multiple sclerosis
Inflammatory bowel diseases (such as Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis)
Guillain-Barre Syndrome
Psoriasis
Grave’s disease
Hashimoto’s thyroiditis
Vasculitis

Again, all of these autoimmune disorders have two things in common:

The immune system is not functioning properly.
Formal diagnoses are required to start receiving any conventional medical treatment.

Now, fortunately, functional medicine doctors do not wait for the label or the uniform to begin combating the autoimmune challenges and improving your immune system’s function.

You see, as functional medicine practitioners, we take a holistic approach to healing. We offer comprehensive health assessments and collect numerous data that sometimes are and sometimes are not part of the traditional medical workup. Not that everyone requires all of the tests I’m about to list off, but workup can be individualized to each patient and can include some of the following:

Personal and family medical history that typically includes a timeline of a person’s entire life, highlighting illnesses as well as physical and emotional traumas
Genetic makeup
Urine analysis
Saliva testing
Blood tests
Nutrient profiles
Allergy testing
Stool analysis
Adrenal stress profiles
Hormone testing
Environmental factors
Mind-body elements
And many more

You see, administering an array of diagnostic tests provides us a greater range of information to best assess and identify the root cause of each individual’s condition.

Now there are three primary things…now this is the most important information for you to make sure you understand if you’re someone with an autoimmune condition. There are three primary things that must be present for anyone to develop an autoimmune condition.

Genetic susceptibility. A person must have a genetic susceptibility, meaning you get your genes you’re your mother and your father. You inherit those and you must be at risk for an autoimmune condition. You do need to have a genetic risk, but actually your positive genes will…your body wants to come to health so our genetics…the bad genes get turned on because of two other things. One is a barrier dysfunction.
Barrier dysfunction. When I say, “barrier dysfunction,” if you think about it, your skin is a barrier. It separates, you know, the outside world and it keeps all your stuff in and separates the inside of you from the outside of you. The skin is a barrier. Your gut lining is also a barrier. Leaky gut, which most people today or many people today have heard of, is another barrier dysfunction that can be the underlying cause of an autoimmune condition and an immune system getting out of balance. Your blood brain barrier is another barrier that can be dysfunctional. The third thing you must have…so genetic susceptibility, barrier dysfunction, and the third thing you must have in order to develop any autoimmune condition is an environmental trigger.
Environmental trigger. Something like toxins, or food sensitivities, or stress are some examples.

Now, with this being said, according to functional medicine, the most common root causes of autoimmune disorders include:

Excessive inflammation
A weakened microbiome, meaning the bugs that we live in relationship within our colon or on our skin or in our sinuses are out of balance
Leaky gut
Chronic infections, whether that chronic infection is in your gums of your mouth or in your gut or on your skin or maybe you’ve had Lyme disease or some other viral infection like Epstein Barr and mono. These chronic infections can be the cause to initiate the trigger for autoimmune disease.
Oxidative stress
Food sensitivities
Exposure to toxins. Some toxins would include mold, traditional or regular cosmetics that aren’t naturally made and have a lot of toxins in them, foods like food sensitivities as I mentioned before, and heavy metals like mercury and lead and other heavy metals.

With these different things, if they’re identified for the individual, it is easier to assemble an approach and a treatment plan to combat these challenges naturally and holistically rather than just temporarily masking the symptoms like blocking your immune system’s function.

Now, various strategies functional medicine doctors use to heal the body’s barriers and to identify and eliminate the environmental triggers to reverse autoimmune imbalances include:

Addressing someone’s inflammation
Helping someone identify the best diet for them so that they quiet their immune system
Healing the gut
Supplements, of course, are important many times to help balance the immune system and decrease inflammation
Detoxification from toxins
Exercise and physical activity are extremely important in fighting against any disease process, and particular autoimmune disease
Treating any infection that is identified
Stress management
Relaxation techniques
And, of course, many more

To best be prepared to combat autoimmune complications, it is important to understand the role of inflammation in the body. Inflammation is, first of all, a vital immune response. It is the body’s attempt to defend itself against any pathogen, any foreign invader. It’s the immune system’s response to heal from injury and repair damaged tissue. If you sprain your ankle and your ankle gets swollen and red and warm, that’s normal because that’s your body’s immune system acute inflammation response in order to heal.

But chronic inflammation, however, can worsen the body’s ability to recognize foreign invaders and puts your body on “high alert” for prolonged periods of time. This can cause lasting damage and the autoimmune response that leads to the body attacking its own healthy cells. It’s almost like I talk in my book, Make a D.E.N.T. in Chronic Disease, about the immune system, and I talk about it as if your immune system is your military: your Army, your Navy, your Air Force, your Marines. If your soldiers don’t ever get to rest…many people are familiar with the concept of what’s called “friendly fire” meaning the soldiers make mistakes and we end up shooting our own people, let’s say. Well, your immune system works in the same way. If it’s hyperactive all the time and it can’t differentiate between foreign invaders and your own tissue, then it starts to attack you.

Now, inflammation can be caused by a number of things, many overlapping with the factors thought to cause autoimmune issues. Up next, we will be discussing different ways to address inflammation of the body and in turn, to combat the common challenges associated with autoimmune disorders.

The number one thing in order to stop any inflammation in the body is to heal the gut! The gut is the foundation of so much chronic disease and particularly hyperactivity of your immune system. The gut microbiome is an ecosystem of organisms including bacteria, yeasts, fungus, viruses, and even protozoa throughout the digestive tract. Most importantly, it is home to 80% of our immune system!

Now, an imbalance in gut bacteria or increased permeability of the intestinal walls (also known as leaky gut) is the typical barrier dysfunction, remember before we talked about three things: genetic susceptibility, barrier dysfunction, and an environmental trigger. Well, leaky gut and increased permeability of your intestinal walls is the typical barrier dysfunction that is a prerequisite to the development of autoimmune conditions. These issues contribute to inflammation and in turn the worsening of autoimmune responses.

Now, thanks to Jeffrey Bland, Ph.D., who is the father of functional medicine, and his colleagues at the Functional Medicine Institute, the 4 R Program was developed which provides an effective and complete way to address and treat gastrointestinal dysfunctions while achieving optimal health and optimal digestion. So, let’s cover these four Rs.

The first R and the first step is to remove possible irritants including inflammatory foods, toxins, and removing and eliminating any low-grade infections. There are many ways to recognize the culprits of your discomfort. One of the top things are food sensitivities. Food sensitivities are different from allergies. We all know that if, for example, a child is allergic to peanuts, they sometimes can’t even be in the same room with peanuts or they’re going to immediately break out in a rash or have problems even breathing. Folks, food sensitivities are different. You could be eating a food you’re sensitive to every day of your life, let’s say, but you’re not able to draw the link between that food and how you’re feeling because it could take anywhere from a few minutes to a few days for a food that you are sensitive to to cause any reaction.

Food sensitives are best identified by taking part in a comprehensive elimination diet. What that means is that you’re going to eliminate the top ten foods in our Standard American Diet that could possibly be a food sensitivity for anyone. For twenty-one days, three weeks, you’re going to avoid those top ten foods. On day twenty-two you do not go, “Woohoo!” and go out and have a pizza and a beer and put everything back at the same time. If you do, you’re going to feel lousy and you will have missed your opportunity to be able to identify which one of those categories of foods that you eliminated for the twenty-one days that you’re sensitive to. Is it one category or two categories or three categories or what? This is a comprehensive and involved step that someone needs to take to identify their food sensitivities.

I have created a course that I call the Detox Plus Program. In this program, this course, I have a guidebook that you print out and five different videos to explain exactly what you do from week to week during your comprehensive elimination diet. In the end of this process, not only have you detoxed, plus you’ve been able to re-challenge the foods in a proper way so that when you’re done, you will have identified your food sensitivities and you will know what to do about how to avoid them.

The other thing you’re going to want to do is it’s recommended to avoid common gastric irritants including caffeine, alcohol, and even nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) like Advil, Motrin, Aleve. They damage, actually, the gut wall. Another thing that can be done to evaluate your microbiome is a stool analysis. That can uncover potential infections caused by parasites, yeast, or bacteria. Now, tests for heavy metal levels and looking for heavy metals like mercury or lead or cadmium can be done via blood, urine, or even a hair analysis.

Once you are made aware of the things irritating your body’s natural digestion, you can begin gradually removing these things that you identified as the irritants to allow your body to regain its natural rhythm and in order to heal. I guarantee you that even proceeding through Step 1 to remove things, you will already begin feeling the difference after completing this first step!

Step 2 is to replace. Step 2 is the healing process. Step 2 refers to replacing the factors needed to optimize your digestion, such as digestive enzymes or essential fiber in your diet or vitamins, minerals, and even possibly acid to increase your stomach acids for digestion. Digestive enzymes are often found in pill form and work to enhance digestion, nutrient absorption, and intestinal repair.

I do want to make a comment here about digestive enzymes because there are a lot of different ones out there and there are a lot of different combinations in digestive enzymes. Some digestive enzymes will include not only the enzymes to break down carbohydrates, fats, and proteins, but they’ll also include what’s called hydrochloric acid (HCl) in them. Many of us do need to increase our stomach acid, but some of us don’t.

So, the only way really to know is to try. If you have heart burn on a regular basis, but you do not have a stomach ulcer at all trying a digestive enzyme that does have HCl (hydrochloric acid) in it is okay to do. If it causes heartburn or increases your heartburn, then that is not good and therefore that’s a sign that the digestive enzymes with the HCl in it and combined with it is not good for you if it increases or causes heartburn. Then you would find one that just has digestive enzymes but does not also include hydrochloric acid or HCl. If you take the digestive enzymes that’s combined with HCl and it does not cause heartburn or it decreases the heartburn you already have been experiencing, then that’s the right one for you. That’s sort of a caveat of something very specific that some people struggle with and aren’t familiar with.

Your nutrient needs are determined by your clinical history and lab testing and provide you with personalized results regarding any vitamin or mineral excess or deficiency. They can be addressed by diet change or supplementation. For example, in the functional medicine world there are what are called numerous advanced functional medicine tests. I use a lab called Genova Diagnostics. It’s just a very popular and familiar and it’s an excellent advanced functional medicine lab.

I offer a test through my office that’s called the NutrEval®. Basically, it’s a nutritional evaluation. This test is awesome because it looks at basically many, many, many different organic acids in numerous biochemical pathways that go on in your body and assesses your gut health, your protein balance, your neurotransmitter balance, your detox system health. It tests you for heavy metals. I mean, it’s an extensive, extensive test. Based on all of the information that it provides for you as an individual, it also tells you what vitamins you need, what minerals you need, and even at what dose. It also tells you what other nutrients that would be recommended specifically for you. It is an amazing test, and I use it on a regular basis with patients.

Step 3 is all about restoring the balance of your gut bacteria, your microbiome. A proper balance of healthy bacterial flora in the gut is crucial for:

Immune activity and balance
Mood stability
Weight management
Disease prevention
Communicating bodily changes

A way to repopulate the much-needed healthy bacteria is by including probiotics and prebiotics in your diet. Up next, we’re going to discuss the differences between prebiotics and probiotics as well as common foods that you can include in your diet to reap the benefits from both prebiotics and probiotics. Let’s talk about that.

Probiotics, folks, are live bacteria that are found in foods such as…pretty much everyone’s familiar with the concept that yogurt has live bacteria in it and so it is a probiotic. Kefir and sauerkraut and tempeh, miso, kimchi, and kombucha are all probiotic foods that promote a healthy balance of bacteria throughout the digestive tract and aid in the battle against many gut-related chronic illnesses. What I recommend is that if one of these you are most familiar with or draws your attention, I would look into not only how to buy it but also how to make it. I make a batch of kombucha on a regular basis at my home. It’s always sort of up in the cabinet fermenting. Once a month or so I will take my brewing kombucha down, I will make a new batch, and then I will put some of that kombucha, for the next week or ten days, in my smoothie every day. You can make your own kombucha, for example, or you can make your own kefir or your own yogurt or your own sauerkraut for that matter! It’s not that hard to do, you just need to look it up and Google it and find out how to do it and start trying to process it. It’s just such a powerful thing. What you feed the bugs that live in your gut are what’s going to promote the right bugs and the right relationship.

Prebiotics are a type of plant fiber and act as food, or fertilizer…so prebiotics are more fertilizer for the probiotic bacteria. Prebiotic foods don’t have the bacteria right in them, they’re not fermented, but they are fiber. They’re plant fiber, and they act as fertilizer for the good guys, the right bugs. In short, prebiotics are needed to help the good bacteria or probiotics stay alive and thrive within your system. Prebiotics can be found in many different foods that are high in fiber such as artichokes, garlic, onion, asparagus, apple, and even legumes.

You see, when we eat fiber, folks, we do not digest it. Humans are not able to digest fiber that we eat. The bacteria that live in our microbiome are the ones that digest fiber for us. Then what the breakdown of the fiber by the bacteria, they create what are called short-chain fatty acids. It’s the short-chain fatty acids that the cells that line our colon, our own cells, use as food. They are the nutrients to them. This process is an example of the symbiotic relationship between your microbiome and the bacteria that live in your colon and the health of your GI tract and the lining of your colon. You see, we need the correct bugs living in our colon to keep us alive and to help us survive optimally.

Now, the last and most important step of your gut’s restoration is repair. Chronic inflammation and stress can severely compromise the lining of the gut. When this is not addressed, this leads to further autoimmune challenges and nutrient deficiencies. Eating foods that are high in zinc; high in L-glutamine; high in vitamins A, D and C; and high in fatty acids and antioxidants support the immune functioning and restoration of your gut. Also, meditation, movement, and other stress management practices are imperative to the repair step of repairing your gastrointestinal system. Up next, we will be spotlighting how some of the most important nutrients aid in combating autoimmune challenges.

Let’s talk about a few specific supplements. A few of the most important nutrients for those suffering from autoimmune issues include, and these aren’t necessarily in any particular order, but vitamin D would be high on the list for sure. Most immune cells have vitamin D receptors that can help adjust the balance of your immune system’s responses. Additionally, vitamin D can activate over 1,000 different genes in the body.

Another supplement or vitamin that is extremely important is actually a mineral called zinc. Zinc helps support the thymus glands and regulate inflammatory cells. Proper zinc levels play a huge role in coordinating the immune system’s inflammation reactions. Obviously, during this COVID pandemic we’ve all been living in for coming on not quite a year yet, but it seems like it, there are zinc lozenges out there, for example. You hear about zinc promoting and optimizing the immune system. It plays into autoimmune conditions as well.

The next supplement or vitamin you would want to consider with autoimmune conditions is called glutathione. Now, glutathione is a powerful antioxidant that is produced in the liver and it especially promotes healthy detoxification of the many irritants that breed inflammation. It also protects the body from oxidative stress and immune dysfunction.

Now, it is difficult to take glutathione tablets that you buy in a store directly because what happens is when you take glutathione in a pill, when it gets into your stomach, your stomach is a very acidic environment and it destroys the chemical makeup of the glutathione. Instead of typically taking glutathione as its own item, many people will take a precursor to glutathione, meaning a supplement that will cause glutathione to be produced in your liver naturally. The two top ones are something called alpha-lipoic acid and the second precursor to glutathione is called N-acetylcysteine or for short NAC. You can take a liposomal or a lipid or fat form of glutathione and sometimes for some people that works well, but the bottom line is glutathione is an awesome antioxidant and a detoxifying chemical and we need to optimize our liver’s ability to produce it.

The next one I want to talk about are omega-3 fatty acids. Fish oils predominantly, but you can produce omega-3 fatty acids from flaxseeds as well and from certain foods. When we get into the discussion of omega-3 fatty acids that you hear about as supplementation a lot and is more health promoting and anti-inflammatory, the opposite of that or the competitor to that is an excess amount of omega-6 fatty acids in the body. The reason why omega-6s are bad is they promote inflammation. Now, you need in your body for optimal health both omega-6s and omega-3s, however, what happens with the Standard American Diet typically is the typical American is eating a diet that is greater than 9:1 of omega-6 to omega-3 fatty acids. This means the Standard American Diet is extremely inflammatory and very high in omega-6s and very low in omega-3 fatty acids. An optimal ratio should be a 3:1 ratio of omega-6 to omega-3s in a person’s diet. Again, most Americans are eating greater than a 9:1 ratio, which is extremely pro-inflammatory and driving autoimmune conditions.

Some very basic things you could think about with your diet is to decrease your meat intake. I’m not saying you have to be a vegetarian but think about any meat serving being about the size of the palm of your hand rather than, you know, the Fred Flintstone piece of meat hanging off the sides of the plate. Decrease the amount of grains in your diet as grains also promote omega-6. We’ve all been told, “God forbid, don’t eat fat because it’s going to make me fat.” Folks, you should increase healthy fats because that’s what the omegas are. Omega-3 fatty acids come from healthy fats like avocados or flaxseeds or cold-water fish like salmon or cod. If you increase these items in your items and find better balance between grains and meat and these different types of healthy fats, you will improve your balance, your ratio between omega-6 and omega-3 fatty acids. I’ll tell you, the imbalance that’s going on out there in the typical American diet between omega-6 and omega-3 fatty acids has been proven to be a leading cause of systemic inflammation and possible autoimmune complications.

Autoimmune complications develop over a period of time, just as the healing process is not completed overnight. As you begin to uncover the causes and the irritants and make the appropriate lifestyle changes, it is important to implement dietary adjustments to ensure you sustain your optimal health.

For example, if foods such as gluten or dairy were found to be causes of your inflammation if you do an elimination diet, these may need to permanently stay out of your long-term eating habits. For example, it’s been so many years for me but whenever I eat dairy, within a few days I’m going to feel sick. Whenever I eat gluten, I almost immediately feel sick. For me, personally, it doesn’t matter how many years it’s been – I cannot ingest dairy or gluten. I also cannot ingest caffeine. However, if once you have combatted the inflammation and strengthened your immune response, your body may react very differently to some foods that were once an irritant to you. For example, not everyone is sensitive to a food forever. You may heal your gut and your immune system to the point where you could handle, let’s say, dairy again.

Unfortunately, I cannot give you a specific diet plan as everyone’s needs are some incredibly different, but a comprehensive elimination diet such as my Detox Plus Program can uncover your body’s needs, intolerances, and reactions to certain foods. It is imperative to remain on the elimination diet for at least twenty-one days in order to quiet your immune system before beginning to reintroduce possible food irritants. On day twenty-two you need to know how to properly start to re-challenge the different categories of foods in a very systematic way so that you can identify your personal food triggers or sensitivities properly.

This is why I created my Detox Plus Program. With it, again, you get a written guide to know what to eliminate and what you can eat, many recipes to choose from that fit the elimination diet, and an enormous amount of education and tips on how to be successful and to avoid hidden ingredients. Besides the written guide, you also get five videos to give you an overview on how to get started, what supplements to consider taking during the detox, an educational video on how your detox system works, stress management exercise and tips, and how to systematically re-challenge the different categories of foods properly once the elimination is ending. Finally, what do you do once your elimination diet is complete, and you have identified your food triggers? What do you do next? Well, I answer all of these questions. If you are intrigued by this and you want to implement this concept, you can obtain my Detox Plus Program through my website www.discoverhealthfmc.com.

We are exposed to so many toxins on a daily basis. Whether it be pesticides on your food, pollutants in the air, water contamination, or the chemicals in our household products, our bodies are absorbing, breathing, and ingesting these toxins constantly. In order to reduce this toxic burden, you must prevent exposure and detoxify regularly as well. Some prevention methods include:

A water filter. You can get a filter for your home. There are even some water bottles that will even have a filter within them.
Air purification systems is another way to detoxify your home.
Eating organic and non-genetically modified organisms is very important to decrease your toxic burden.
Buying toxic-free household items and toxic-free cosmetics.

Besides the Detox Plus Program to identify your food triggers, other detoxification methods would include:

Ample hydration – making sure you’re drinking plenty of water every day.
Fasting and intermittent fasting can help your body to allow it to detoxify better.
Sweating and exercising are extremely important. We actually remove toxins from our body through sweat a lot more than we do actually through urine or through our bowel movements.

Now, stress and disease go hand-in-hand. When stress is not managed properly (or at all), the body takes the load, becomes inflamed, and often develops or worsens autoimmune conditions. Everyone manages their stress differently, but some ideas for you to think about or to determine whether you’re doing them or whether you might want to be looking for options, include:

Deep breathing exercises
Exercise itself and movement, of course, is a huge stress reducer especially if it’s the right type of exercise for you
Yoga
Massage
Meditation
Creating art or crafting
Spending time with loved ones which is why this pandemic time is difficult. We can’t spend as much time in social settings with everyone we love all the time.
Going outdoors into nature is a huge reducer of stress and management of stress.

In order to help with this part of your health journey, we at Discover Health Functional Medicine Center have created a whole new program throughout the COVID pandemic. It’s called the Discover Health Movement Membership. This is a completely online program so you can do it from anywhere! It includes three movement classes per week including one called Discover Yoga, another movement class called Self-Myofascial Release, and the third movement class called Movement for Longevity. With a monthly membership, you get all three of these classes every week. You get twelve classes per month, and you get access to the last eight months that we now have been doing these classes. Multiply eight times twelve!

Now, you can join as a recordings-only member or for just a small amount more you can join as a member that wants to participate in the classes in real time. So, during the Zoom class, you can actually ask questions and interact with the teachers in a live and real-time way. To access our movement classes this winter and learn the tools to self-healing, you would go to my website again www.discoverhealthfmc.com/#Movement, and that will take you directly to the movement program.

As I typically do after these presentations, I will post in our Discover Health Facebook Group tomorrow a list of all the resources that were used to create this presentation. Now, if you are already a member of our Discover Health Facebook Group, then all you do is go into the group tomorrow and you will receive obviously a list of all the resources I used to put this presentation on autoimmune conditions together. If you’re not already a member of our Discover Health Facebook Group, then all you do is go to Facebook and go to our Discover Health Functional Medicine Center Facebook Page and then look on that page for the little button you push to ask to join our Discover Health Facebook Group. In that group, not only do you, after these webinars, get all these resources, but also every week Health Coach Trish does Coach’s Corner and every day she’s got some sort of post she is doing. The different members communicate with each other, and if you have questions you can ask them there.

One other resource that you can consider to help you understand how your immune system works and how to heal it is actually my first book, Make a D.E.N.T. in Chronic Disease. You’ll notice the D.E.N.T. is an acronym. In this book, in chapter one, the whole point of chapter one is to explain how the immune system works. I’m not talking and writing as if I’m talking to doctors. I’m writing as if I’m talking to each one of you that’s listening. A person that is a layperson that wants to understand, how does my immune system work and why is it possibly attacking me in an autoimmune condition? Then, the rest of the book explains how to heal an autoimmune condition through detox and diet, exercise, nutrition, and treatment of stress in order to heal yourself.

If you’d like to get access to this book, all you do is go to Amazon and look up the title. Look up my name, Trish Murray, or go and put in the title Make a D.E.N.T. and notice it’s D.E.N.T. I believe if you don’t put that in you may not find it, but it’s Make a D.E.N.T. in Chronic Disease. Remember D.E.N.T. is an acronym. Of course, we carry my different books in my office, so you can always call us to get access.

Thank you so much again for participating tonight and being such a wonderful audience! If you would at this time, I’m going to ask you to please share if you felt that there was one piece of information that you learned tonight that maybe you didn’t already know, or maybe already knew it but it highlighted it for you. In order to combat your autoimmune challenges naturally and to optimize your overall health, could you type it for us in the chat?

Also, if you feel like you need support on your journey, please do not hesitate to ask for help. Reach out to us at Discover Health Functional Medicine Center. In order to do that, you can sign up, there are many different ways to do it. One way is to go to my website and right at the very beginning of my website there is a link for someone to sign up for a free 30-minute introductory phone conversation with me or one of my staff in order to talk about your situation and functional medicine and to see if it is the right fit for you. You also can, of course, call my office at (603) 447-3112 or you can even email us at .

Get your FREE copy of Dr. Trish Murray’s first book, Make a D.E.N.T. in Chronic Disease

Watch this full webinar on our YouTube channel: https://youtu.be/3EOQo917Tfg

For more information on the Discover Health Movement Membership

Website: https://www.discoverhealthfmc.com/#Movement
Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/discoverhealthmovement
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/discoverhealthmovement/?hl=en
To register: https://members.discoverhealthfmc.com/product/discover-movement-membership

References

Trish Murray’s book: Make a D.E.N.T. in Chronic Disease
Detox Plus Program
Free Discovery Consultation

Resources

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