Immune Support
Our immune system is a wonderfully complex combination of systems all working together. Several factors that you have control of will help you help your immune system do its job better. Let's start with autoimmune problems, one of my favorite topics. Every time your body goes after a foreign protein, bacteria or virus, it also activates a system call the regulatory T-cells. For example, if the National Guard is called into a city to stop a riot, they have a lot of power within that trouble zone to do what needs to be done. They are restricted from going into neighboring cities and shooting people. So, it is with our immune system. To be specific we can use a common antigen or invader protein, gluten. Genes on chromosome 6 help the body decide if proteins are native or foreign. These genes go into action whether you eat gluten or get a kidney transplant. Foreign proteins are foreign proteins. When you eat gluten and are gluten sensitive, you will activate those genes, and the immune system will go to work to destroy those proteins.
Immune System Loses Track of Who is Foreign and Who is Native
The regulatory system has trouble stopping this reaction and it spreads to other tissues such as the brain (ataxia and/or dementia), pancreas (diabetes,) thyroid (Hashimoto's), bone (osteoporosis), skin (dermatitis) etc. To combat this type of response, you will need to stop exposing your body to gluten and take supplements that will help heal the immune response. Those supplements would be vitamin D such as Protocol Vitamin D3 5000 and probiotics such as BetterGenix FloraGenix. Vitamin D actually helps balance the immune response to calm to the autoimmune reaction. The probiotics work to heal the intestinal lining and also helps to modulate the immune system. That is another way of saying that these will help your immune system recognize what is dangerous and what is friendly. Most people will probably have to take a higher dose of vitamin D than is recommended by national review committees.
How Much D is Enough?
Some doctors are recommending protocols such as 50,000 IUs per day for 7 days then 5000 a day for 3 weeks and then back to 50,000 IUs per day for 7 days etc. You can always check your blood after a cycle or two to make sure you aren't in a toxic range (over 220 ng/ml) which is actually difficult to achieve.
Probiotic Dosing
Some researchers in the field of probiotics recommend high doses of several kinds of probiotics for a couple of years after a routine antibiotic treatment. Usually, one to two capsules a day is recommended. In order to restore gut health, some have recommended something closer to 10 to 20 capsules per day. We personally haven't had good results with high doses of probiotics. If you are going down that road you will need to understand your body and which particular strains of probiotics to use. This is highly specialized knowledge so can't recommend this to our client base. Often, we need to use different formulas from different companies at the same time. We usually use a cap of FloraGenix in the evening.
Basic Detox
Starting a detox program will also be a big help for your immune system. We recommend products like LifeWave Glutathione Patches and maybe Jarrow IP6. Follow the following link to see some other products that are formulated to help boost immune function especially to fight off bacteria, viral and parasitic infections. Immune Support Products
