Why be slow to take immunity boosting into your own hands

EASTERN PHILOSOPHY ESPOUSES mindful eating: which is simply fostering the practice of thinking about what you plan to put in your mouth. Of course, you can think good, healthy food to high heaven ... but then you have to actually eat it or all the thought was for naught.

Before I go on, perhaps you’d like to peruse the two posts directly before this, for Covid-combating immune boosting information I’ve delivered thus far.

Now then … the body’s impressive natural array of defences block, trap and kill outside organisms considered threatening. This system also has a memory, to prevent these same attacks again.

“Wonderful!” you declare with a sigh of relief. 

But remember: women with endometriosis have immune system abnormalities and impairments.

Without this strong, properly functioning immune system defence, most people would constantly fall ill from the wide range of pathogenic assaults to the body. Oops! That seems to actually be happening all around us.

WOULDN’T IT BE NICE … 

Imagine if as an endo-coper you could live almost entirely free of fatigue, headaches, listlessness, repeated infections, diarrhea, weight issues and inflammation agonies—all symptoms accepted as being caused by endo; but may be caused by weak immune systems.

That’s why we are at high risk for Covid.

BOOSTING IMMUNITY VIA NUTRITION 

My new live-by motto is: “Control the “controlables.” 

The immune system works more effectively when internal and external factors are under control. It may be difficult to control everything in the outside world; but bet your bottom dollar you can control what goes inside your body.

Here’s the simple equation: 

Good diet = GOOD HEALTH 

Look this up, ladies! I’ll start you off with a taste (pun intended) of what wholesome, healthy foods to try. 

So, antioxidants are a great group of vitamins, minerals and enzymes that prevent the formation of free radicals—which can damage cells and cause infections and degenerative diseases. Antioxidants also safeguard our DNA, the genetic material necessary for healthy cell reproduction. 

Many herbs, natural foods and nutritional supplements contain powerful antioxidant ingredients that can preserve and heal the body. A diet made up of foods rich in antioxidants is a truly superb (and delicious) way to strengthen your immune system. I bet you lose weight, too 😤. 

Changing your diet is also an equation: you have to add, sure; but also subtract. Cut out, or considerably cut down, alcohol, specific caffeine, tobacco, cow’s milk, refined flour/sugar. Even small amounts can serve as “food” for unwanted microbes.

WHAT YOU WANT TO ADD ARE … 

• VEGETABLES like cabbage, spinach, garlic, peppers
• FRUITS like coconut and coconut oil (superfoods!), berries, citrus, apples. These provide soluble fibre, which can help to alter the “personality” of immune cells, turning them from pro-inflammatory to anti-inflammatory. A WORD OF NOTE: some good foods contain salicylates, like apples and broccoli, and may make you feel drained, bloated, etc. Citrus fruits can produce alkaline urine, thus encouraging bacterial growth.
• HERBS are fantastic—like oregano, turmeric, ginger, licorice root, fennel.
• TINCTURES AND EXTRACTS like astragalus—a superb adaptogen; oregano oil, mushroom extracts, echinacea
• TEAS like ginger, holy basil (tulsi), peppermint, chamomile, lavender
• Even BEAUTY PRODUCTS can transfer nutrients through skin absorption. So invest in antioxidant-enriched face wipes, spritzers, massage oils, hair products. And get some sunlight on your face and neck. Before 8AM and after 3PM are deemed the safest hours.

Graphic illustration by Jhaye-Q Baptiste, from photos by Patrick Joyce.

Investigate the inventive array of recipes using many of the above cited foods on the Internet (for starters). 

We eat to live. So change your lives, dear hearts. Your bodies will love you for it … then you’ll love your bodies for it.

       In beauty may you walk

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Fresh air and sudden sprints: they do a body good.

IT’S AS EASY AS sweating and breathing, to begin boosting your immune system to fight Covid-19.

It’s the most straightforward way to combat other big bad “disease monsters,” including ghastly endometriosis flare-ups.

For those of you who might have just tuned in, I’m continuing dealing with the fact that:

"Current studies indicate immune system abnormalities play a significant part in women contracting endometriosis, now classified as an autoimmune disease."

You know, like diabetes, heart disease. People who suffer from any of these are at higher risk of contracting Covid. That means us, endo-gals. 

I’ve spent the last posts highlighting this challenge, and encouraging you to take a “get in front” attitude with whatever is lurking in life looking for weakened immune systems to pray upon.

The basic tested and proven premise is that people with strong, optimum-working immune systems fight of all sorts of “health ills”; or recover faster and much more efficiently. 

Perhaps you’d like to peruse the two previous posts, to catch up on, or review, the immunity information I’ve delivered thus far.

BEST BOOST BET PHASE 1: 

Get It In and Let It Out 

Dr. John Bergman, in a Youtube lecture on reversing arthritis (watch video), relates that “perspiration and respiration boost circulation.”

How? Add them up and you get detoxification. A clean car engine works better, right? Well our bodies as the best engines ever. See? 

One way to kick detoxification into fast gear is to get our exercise in. When you train, you work up a sweat and you work harder at breathing. Both help super-charge your body’s systems AND rally those same systems to regularly and properly flush toxins. 

Not only is that great for your skin; it’s like giving your immune system a “facelift,” too. How great is that!

Do you know what’s the number one recommendation to keep endo under control? Exercise. Win-win.

WORKING AROUND WORK-OUT CHALLENGES

My response: “But Covid quarantine. But endo bed-ridden.”

So come one girls! We can start unfussy and small, and grow as we go.

• How many of us are glued to our tellies bingeing movies? Get a brick, or a couple of phonebooks taped securely together, or pull out that actual stepper you spent money on. Instead of reclining and reaching for the kettlecorn; while you watch the movie step up and down. Seriously. You’ll follow the film just as well, trust me. Begin with twenty minutes and build up till you can go for a full flick. As you get stronger, find ways to make it more challenging.
• Whenever you have to head out, if it’s walking distance, shun closed up vehicles for fresh, open air. It’s easier to breathe through a mask outside than inside, yeah. Put some extra pep in your step; and remember, they add up.
• Yoga, baby … Deep breaths, slow stretching, calm, sweet, surrender; but yoga makes you sweat. Not in a spinning-class way, yet potently, still. When it comes respiring, this ages old art form of a physical therapy can’t be beat. It’s low-impact, thus perfect for endometriosisters who DO NOT want to jiggle those nasty cysts. And you get to do a lot of it lying down.

Chat with friends and come up with other groovy ideas. Post a comment suggesting some and how it’s working for you. If I gather a few of those, I can put together a feature under the label, "What She Tried"  

Speaking of try, dear hearts, just try. Social distancing does not mean you are alone … or without power of your own. 

      In beauty may you walk

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A strong immune system is a "mask" you can wear all the time, and actually enhances your physical attributes, rather than hiding them.

“My theory is that with endo we have FIRST LINE and SECOND LINE symptoms. Some symptoms which we accept as being caused by endo, may in fact be caused by the self same weak immune system that gave rise to our endo in the first place.”

TAKE A SYSTEMS approach.

That’s advice to move any woman far forward in all aspects of her life: be it relationships, business or battling diseases like endometriosis. For the latter, taking a systematic and systemic approach to your symptoms helps you come away from merely trying to cope with endo, and gives you the power of management.

My theory is that many of the horrible symptoms we face with endometriosis might be simply “offshoot” aspects. Bloating, heavy bleeding, unbearable pain, anemia may be second tier/second line symptoms resulting from what caused our endo.

This is where combating endo and warding off Covid intersect: a powerful immune system is the best defence against both.

Immunogenic and proud

The body is protected by amazing sets of systems, be the “attacker” germ, poison, injury, toxin, psychological, mental, emotional. If we keep these systems functioning at peak, we need not fear damaging things out in the world that want to get inside our bodies to wreck havoc.

A weakened immune system is a FIRST LINE issue of endo, and may very well be what caused it and what’s keeping it around.

Whether we are trying to resist disease, or combat the one we already have, once we focus on our first line symptoms, we won’t have to waste time and energy on suffering or solving the many individual resultant second line symptoms.

Prevention is protection and vice versa.

weak vs IMMUNE

Remember that a weak immune system produces any, or many, of the following: fatigue, listlessness, repeated infections, inflammation, allergic reactions, slow wound healing, chronic diarrhoea, aches, pains, et al.  Consider yourself. Now then, does you immunity seem shaky or solid?

Boosting the immune system could eliminate some, most, even all of the above listed, as well as other endo challenges.

Immunity stimulation can be had via making changes to what you eat; how you exercise; where you look for health answers, and when you decide to alter your outlook on living with an autoimmune disease.

The idea is not to wait and work on immunity enhancement after you become ill; but to ensure your immune system retains strength and health, enough to resist illness altogether, or fight it off quickly if you succumb.

This is one of the most important aspects of preventative medicine, which is the cornerstone of the natural health revolution. Think about it: with Covid the mantra was, “The best way to stop the spread is to NOT get infected.” Prevention is better than cure any day of the week, because you might not be able to cure.

Improving Immunity via Naturopathy

The immune system and, indeed, every other system in your body, works more effectively when external factors are under control. We have to be mindful of what goes into our bodies, goes on around our bodies, and what our bodies undergo day to day. (My next post will provide applicable suggestions for this.)

Unlike westernised medicine and health care, most natural remedies and therapies are designed to nurture our bodies and ballast immunity. That’s because they involve activities, methods and nutrition that “do a body good” for real.

The healthiest among us can only benefit from prudent application of lifestyle practices that inarguably care for our bodies, with manageable negative side effects, if any. So make the effort and work hard for your immune system’s best. In return, it will do the same for you.

In beauty may you walk

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“Current studies clearly indicate that the immune system plays a role in endometriosis and that women with it have immune system abnormalities.” – from Coping With Endometriosis, Robert H. Phillips, Ph.D. and Glenda Motta, R.N. (published 2000)

ENDOMETRIOSISTERS, forgive me.

I should have written this piece when Covid-19 first began its terrible trek from the East. Someone had to speak to you, specifically, about your situation.

    Covid-19 attacks persons with compromised immune systems.

    “You’re at high risk!” they told my adult onset diabetic sister at work, a full two weeks before the Trinidad & Tobago Government put my nation on “self-distancing lock-down.”

    I bet you no one was uttering those words to endometriosis sufferers.

    It’s hard enough getting our disease to be recognised as existing (the numbers of women who remain undiagnosed are staggering). It’s difficult enough to get proper, actually helpful treatment (in TnT, hysterectomy remains preferred, even on otherwise healthy women in the prime of their child-bearing life). 

    So it seems impossible to have the following acknowledged:

“Other studies strongly suggest that endometriosis should be classified as an autoimmune disease, a condition in which the antibodies of the body’s immune system, for some reason, turn around and fight healthy tissue within the body.” – ibid.

    Yep, right up there with chronic heart disease and hypertension.

    Ain’t that a kick in the crotch

    Listen, one of the reasons I failed to do any posting was that facing Covid fears and other large life dramas, I was undergoing a high stress period (pun acknowledged). Stress is my number one endo flare up trigger. *sigh*

    But, throughout I was thinking about all of you who might be experiencing your own hyped up discomforts, pressures and agonies, without the balm of at least understanding what might be causing it. As the song lyrics go,

“I wanna hold your ha-a-a-a-and!”

ENDO & IMMUNITY: Getting Over You

A normal immune system protects you. It generates defending cells called ANTIBODIES, to fight off invading germs and other foreign bodies intent on harm.

Evidence shows that endometrial cells misplaced in the peritoneal cavity are classified by your local immune cells as “foreign.” These are wiped out in women with healthy immune systems. So endometriosis can only grow in an immune system where antibodies are less able to eliminate misplaced tissue.

Supporting this is the fact that endo suffering women often cope simultaneously with other auto-immune conditions, including: multiple sclerosis, fibromyalgia, lupus, rheumatoid arthritis, psoriasis, ulcerative colitis, chronic fatigue and yeast infections (candida).

IMMUNITY  ALL IN YOU: Go on, Girl!

A healthy immune system is beautiful balance.

The blood supply, lymph system and small sets of organs known as the tonsils, thymus gland and the spleen, operate in synchrony. One primary job is to produce white cells in the blood (leukocytes), with the superlative function to defend against disease.

An immune system working at optimum level shields us from infections and infestations. Furthermore, an uncompromised system ensures quick and efficient recovery from illness.

SPOTTING A WEAKENED IMMUNE SYSTEM

Do these symptoms of a weak immune system look familiar?

Inflammation, aches and pain, repeated infections, chronic diarrhea, fatigue, listlessness, allergic reactions, slow wound healing

You’re like: “Aren’t most of those because of my endo?”

My theory is that with endo we have FIRST LINE and SECOND LINE symptoms. I’ll devote an entire post to that soon.

Some symptoms which we accept as being caused by endo, may in fact be caused by the self same weak immune system that gave rise to our endo in the first place.

By boosting our weakened immune system, we could eliminate some of the above listed symptoms altogether, and provide outstanding protection against diseases like Covid-19.

Savvy up via my next post.

In beauty may you walk 

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Taking time to try

Hoping for real help

In beauty may you walk