If you’re dealing with an autoimmune condition, you’ve probably been told it’s something you just have to manage for the rest of your life. Take your medication, avoid flare-ups, and learn to live with it.
But here’s what most doctors won’t tell you: autoimmune disorders don’t just appear out of nowhere. There are actual, identifiable causes behind why your immune system turns against your own body. And if we can find those causes, we can actually do something about them.
Some of the Causes of Autoimmunity
Autoimmune conditions don’t have just one cause. They’re not like breaking your arm, where there’s a clear event that caused the problem. Instead, autoimmunity is usually the result of multiple factors that have been building up in your body over time. Let’s talk about what some of those factors are.
Energetic Debt
This might sound like a strange concept if you’ve never heard of it before, but stay with me. Your body runs on energy at the cellular level. That energy comes from a molecule called ATP, and your cells need it to function properly, repair themselves, and reproduce correctly.
When your body is producing less energy than it’s using, you’re in what’s called energetic debt. And when your cells don’t have enough energy to reproduce the way they should, things start to go wrong. Your immune system might not recognize your own cells as “you” anymore because they’re not being made correctly. That’s when it starts attacking them.
Think of it like trying to run a business when you’re constantly short on cash. Eventually, things start breaking down. Quality control suffers. Mistakes get made. The same thing happens in your body when it’s in energetic debt. Your cells can’t maintain their usual standards, and your immune system gets confused about what’s supposed to be there and what isn’t.
Hidden Infections (Stealth Infections)
Somewhere in your body, you might have bacteria, viruses, or something else you don’t even know about. These hidden infections quietly irritate your immune system and cause it to overreact.
The problem with stealth infections is that they’re sneaky. They don’t always cause obvious symptoms. You might not feel sick in the traditional sense, but your immune system knows something’s wrong. It’s constantly on high alert, constantly fighting. Over time, that chronic immune activation can cause your immune system to get its wires crossed and start attacking healthy tissue.
A lot of people here in Lafayette and the surrounding Acadiana area have been dealing with symptoms for years without realizing there’s an underlying infection driving the whole process. Traditional testing often misses these infections because it’s not looking in the right places or using the right methods.
Digestive Health
Your gut health plays a massive role in autoimmune conditions. If you have something like leaky gut syndrome, which means larger molecules such as food particles get into your bloodstream undigested, that’s going to trigger an immune reaction every single time you eat.
Your immune system sees those undigested food particles in your blood and thinks they’re invaders, so it mounts an attack. When this happens meal after meal, day after day, your immune system stays in a constant state of activation. Eventually, that chronic inflammation and immune response can trigger autoimmunity.
Your digestive system is supposed to act as a barrier. It’s meant to fully break down food and only allow properly digested nutrients into your bloodstream. But when that barrier gets compromised, and the tight junctions in your intestinal lining start to loosen, you’ve got a problem. Fixing that digestive issue is often a critical piece of resolving autoimmune conditions.
Food Allergies
This one’s related to digestive health, but it deserves its own section because it’s so common. If you’re eating something your immune system reacts to, even if it’s something you’ve been eating your whole life, it could be contributing to your autoimmune condition.
We’re not just talking about dramatic allergic reactions here. These are often subtle sensitivities you might not even notice. Maybe you feel a little more tired after eating certain foods, or you get some brain fog, or your joints ache more. Those are signs your immune system is reacting.
Every time you eat that food, you’re adding fuel to the autoimmune fire. Your immune system is already confused and overactive, and adding more immune triggers through your diet only makes everything worse.
The Bottom Line
These are just some of the causes of autoimmune disorders. What I’ve seen over and over is that most people dealing with autoimmunity have several of these issues happening at the same time. They’ve been building up, stacking on top of each other, until your body finally reaches a tipping point and autoimmunity sets in.
This is why medication alone isn’t enough. Most of the time, medication only targets the symptoms and one small part of the disorder instead of looking at the bigger picture. Your doctor might give you something to suppress your immune system or reduce inflammation, but that doesn’t address why your immune system got confused in the first place.
You need treatment that identifies the root causes if you want to actually eliminate the disorder, not just manage it. That means testing for things traditional medicine usually overlooks. It means looking at your body as a whole system instead of just treating isolated symptoms.
Here in Lafayette and throughout the greater Acadiana area, we’ve helped people finally uncover what’s really driving their autoimmune conditions and take control of their health again. When you’re ready for real autoimmune treatment that actually works, book a consultation with us. You deserve more than just learning to live with it. You deserve to actually get better.