5 Alternative Healing Methods for Autoimmune Diseases

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Nearly 50 million Americans suffer from more than 80 different kinds of autoimmune diseases. Sadly, there are no cures for these issues. Patients with autoimmune disorders are at the mercy of medications that cause their own uncomfortable and even painful symptoms. Alternative healing methods, however, can be a great way to help counter the pain, inflammation, and other complications of autoimmune diseases. You can use alternative therapies to heal, reduce stress, provide immune support, and decrease pain and inflammation. Plus, you can use alternative therapies while taking the medications needed to keep your autoimmune disorder under control. 

Controlling the symptoms of autoimmune diseases: inflammation and pain, helps improve the mindset of those who suffer from these diseases. Improving patient mindset is a key piece to bringing positive change to the quality of life, which, in turn, can decrease the frequency of flare-ups while increasing the length of remissions. An autoimmune disease can make you feel hopeless; your body is fighting against itself, and there is no cure. Finding positivity and healing in the midst of this reality can increase the frequency and length of remission periods. Alternative healing methods can help. 

Here are five alternative healing methods for autoimmune diseases.

Alternative Healing Methods: 

Massage

One of the greatest benefits of massage therapy as an alternative healing method is how it helps those with auto-immune disease get more sleep and more restful sleep. This allows them to spend more time healing and calming down the sympathetic nervous system, the system that stimulates the immune response. Things that help to calm the body can help balance the immune system, allow healing, and improve remission time. 

Acupuncture

Pop culture has long made fun of acupuncture as an alternative healing method with caricatures of those brave enough to try it covered in needles or shrieking in pain. This ancient Chinese practice, however, reduces inflammation by releasing clogged energy. In fact, those who have Rheumatoid arthritis have been known to experience noticeable relief in their pain and inflammation. No one is quite sure exactly how it works on the body, but acupuncture does work to help treat auto-immune disease.

Chiropractic 

Combining the alternative healing methods of chiropractic care, massage therapy, and acupuncture serves to treat all the body areas – the bones, the muscles, and the nerves. Chiropractic care helps to align the skeletal body and with it the muscles and nerves. Each of these systems needs the other to be functioning at peak efficiency to be healthy, and many autoimmune disorders degenerate joints and bones, making the skeletal system weaker. Chiropractic care can help reduce the march of destruction. 

Herbs and Supplements 

There are several herbs and supplements that can be used to help reduce pain and inflammation. One of the best is Turmeric, especially when mixed with pepper. Some supplements mix the two. You can also add turmeric to food but in much smaller and less helpful quantities. Sasparilla and yarrow help purify the blood while reducing inflammation; sasparilla helps with arthritis and other diseases, while yarrow is also an antiviral. Yucca helps decrease stiffness and ease skin disorders. Chlorella and spirulina ease lupus, and are full of useful vitamins and amino acids. Green tea is also a great anti-inflammatory. 

Check out our list of 12 other Anti-Inflammatory Spices

Diet

The most highly recommended method of decreasing inflammation via diet is to try an elimination diet called the Auto-Immune Protocol. This elimination diet cuts out foods that are known to cause inflammation until the body has calmed. Then, one step at a time, you reintroduce foods, keeping careful watch for any sign of inflammation. This helps you eliminate foods that cause inflammation and create a diet that provides the nutritional support your body needs.