Western Medicine
Understanding autoimmune diseases through scientific research, immunology, and evidence-based treatment approaches
What is Autoimmunity?
Autoimmunity is a violation of the body's defense mechanisms in which the immune system attacks its own cells and tissues instead of protecting against external threats. This occurs when immunological tolerance to self-antigens breaks down.
Autoimmune diseases affect 5-10% of the population and represent one of the most challenging areas of modern medicine. While Western medicine has made significant advances in understanding and treating these conditions, they remain chronic and require comprehensive, long-term management strategies.
Understanding the mechanisms behind autoimmunity is essential for effective treatment and prevention strategies.
Four Main Mechanisms of Autoimmunity Development
How the immune system turns against itself
1. Lymphocyte Activation
Normally dormant self-reactive T and B lymphocytes become inappropriately activated, breaking immunological tolerance.
Example: Type 1 Diabetes - T cells attack insulin-producing pancreatic beta cells
2. Autoantibody Production
B cells produce antibodies that recognize and bind to the body's own proteins, marking them for destruction.
Example: Graves' Disease - antibodies stimulate thyroid hormone overproduction
3. Immune Complex Formation
Antibodies bind to antigens, forming complexes that deposit in tissues, triggering inflammation and damage.
Example: Systemic Lupus Erythematosus (SLE) - complexes damage kidneys, joints, skin
4. Cell-Mediated Immunity
Cytotoxic T cells directly attack and destroy the body's own cells perceived as foreign or damaged.
Example: Multiple Sclerosis - T cells attack myelin sheath in nervous system
Factors Contributing to Autoimmunity Development
Multiple influences shape autoimmune disease risk and progression
Immunodeficiency Syndromes
Weakened immune regulation fails to control self-reactive cells
Chronic Inflammation
Persistent inflammatory signals create environment for autoimmunity
Genetic Factors
HLA gene variants and family history increase susceptibility
Environmental Triggers
Infections, toxins, UV exposure can initiate autoimmune responses
Sex & Hormones
Women are 2-3x more likely; estrogen influences immune function
Age
Peak onset typically 20-40 years; some diseases begin in childhood
Diet & Nutrition
Gut microbiome, vitamin D, omega-3s affect immune regulation
Stress & Emotions
Chronic stress dysregulates immune system, triggers flares
Medications
Certain drugs can trigger drug-induced autoimmune syndromes
Treatment Principles in Western Medicine
Two complementary approaches to managing autoimmune diseases
Drug Therapy
Pharmaceutical interventions to suppress immune activity and reduce inflammation
Non-Drug Therapy
Lifestyle and complementary approaches to support immune regulation
⚠️ Important Consideration
While drug therapy is often necessary and life-saving, long-term use of immunosuppressive medications carries significant side effects. An integrative approach combining conventional treatments with evidence-based complementary therapies often provides the best outcomes with reduced medication burden.
Key Drug Categories & Side Effects
Understanding the benefits and risks of conventional treatments
1. Corticosteroids (Prednisone, Methylprednisolone)
Mechanism:
Powerful anti-inflammatory action by suppressing multiple immune pathways
Common Side Effects:
- • Weight gain, mood changes, insomnia
- • Osteoporosis, muscle weakness
- • Increased infection risk
- • Diabetes, hypertension
- • Adrenal suppression with long-term use
2. Immunosuppressants (Methotrexate, Azathioprine, Cyclosporine)
Mechanism:
Broadly suppress immune system activity, reducing autoimmune attack
Common Side Effects:
- • Liver and kidney toxicity
- • Bone marrow suppression
- • Increased infection risk
- • Nausea, fatigue
- • Increased cancer risk with long-term use
3. Biologic Agents (TNF inhibitors, IL inhibitors, B-cell depleters)
Mechanism:
Target specific immune molecules or cells, offering more precision than traditional immunosuppressants
Common Side Effects:
- • Injection site reactions
- • Increased infection risk (especially TB reactivation)
- • Allergic reactions
- • Possible increased malignancy risk
- • High cost
4. Immunomodulators (Hydroxychloroquine, Interferons)
Mechanism:
Modify immune response rather than suppress it, offering gentler regulation
Common Side Effects:
- • Retinal toxicity (hydroxychloroquine)
- • Flu-like symptoms
- • Skin reactions
- • Generally better tolerated than immunosuppressants
5. NSAIDs (Ibuprofen, Naproxen, COX-2 inhibitors)
Mechanism:
Reduce inflammation and pain by inhibiting prostaglandin synthesis
Common Side Effects:
- • Gastrointestinal ulcers and bleeding
- • Kidney damage with long-term use
- • Cardiovascular risks
- • Liver toxicity
An Insight into Psychotherapy
The Role of Psychosomatics in Treating Autoimmune Diseases
A client comes to a session and shows her palms swollen to the tips of her fingers. She says: "I feel completely helpless, everything falls out of my hands. I can't do anything. The rheumatologist diagnosed me with arthritis!" Helplessness, emptiness, uncertainty. Do these words sound familiar?
The most characteristic feature of people with autoimmune system disorders is a feeling of powerlessness that has taken over their lives. They try to get out of this state by actively doing something. Constant activity is very important — it helps one to regain an illusory sense of control over their life.
They tire themselves out exercising or becoming wrapped up in work. They often work with enthusiasm and achieve notable results. Many people admit that the main benefit of working so hard and active recreation is the feeling of satisfaction, security and body peace. Indeed, in these moments, one no longer feels powerless.
Patients with AID are also actively seeking medical solutions: undergoing examinations, finding the right diet, taking medicine. It gives them peace of mind and security, especially when symptoms are relieved. Doctors take care of them. They manage to relax and unwind a little.
Some time passes, and everything changes again, the peace fades away. Remission disappears. This, in turn, causes people to experience anxiety again and again. And so the process becomes endless.
The obvious question is: "What is this all about?"
The answer might be "This is about the hidden, the invisible, the difficult to understand". Scientists are searching for the key to the mystery in genetics and biological processes. Psychotherapists — in psychic processes and related situations that are not easily accessible and recognisable because the memories about them are weak or even completely erased.
Psycho-Organic Analysis (POA)
"Situations in life repeat themselves in order to be transformed"
From the point of view of a psychotherapist practicing psycho-organic analysis, situations that are repetitive in life and in which the individual experiences the same affect want to be transformed. Metaphorically speaking, affect knocks on the door of life to be healed. The individual has failed to find a solution in the past. They have been incorporated into hidden forms of memory or even erased from conscious memory by the protective mechanisms of the psyche.
Retaining such memories in the psyche leads to constantly heightened psychic and somatic tension.
Identity Formation
POA views the formation of psyche identity as a dynamic process. Identity is constantly being formed anew. In a living person, the biological and neurological processes of the psyche are constant and occur at high speed.
If an individual experiences insurmountable frustration in any of these sub-processes or gets into an overly tense psycho-emotional state and the defence mechanisms of the psyche are immature, unable to respond appropriately, the unity or wholeness of the psyche is threatened, creating fragmentation or splitting in the psyche.
The Vicious Circle (Circulus Vitiosus)
The situations described are psycho-emotionally charged and unconsciously seek an emotional, bodily and symbolic solution. In such cases, the so-called Circulus vitiosus, or vicious circle, can be triggered and be active. Deviation from the norm causes change, and respective change causes deviation.
Psycho-Emotional Stress
During heightened stress, the neuroendocrine system is over-stimulated: the hypothalamus, amygdala, hippocampus. If the psycho-emotional state is short-lived and high-intensity, or less intense but prolonged, regulatory systems are overloaded.
Neuroendocrine Imbalance
Balance between the excitatory amygdala and the inhibitory hippocampus is lost. This results in somatic changes — adrenal insufficiency, autoimmune system imbalances causing confusion in body functioning.
Tissue Damage & Inflammation
Micro-damage to various tissues leads to aseptic inflammation (arthritis). Inflammation causes active stimulation of receptors, triggering reflexes that increase muscle tone.
Perpetual Cycle
Prolonged overload leads to muscle exhaustion and joint deformity. The cycle maintains psycho-emotional tension, creating a self-sustaining pathological system.
The Psychotherapeutic Approach
Breaking the Pathological Circle
The aim of therapy is to break the pathological vicious circle that has already developed as a mutually sustaining system. While traditional medicine offers appropriate medication, these are effective but with side effects that limit long-term use.
Reducing psycho-emotional tension and transforming traumatic situations is the goal of the psychotherapeutic approach. Thus, the pathological vicious circle can be broken on a mental level.
Why Work With a Psychotherapist?
It is not easy because it requires working with another person (psychotherapist) or group of people. Why? Because a closed system cannot change itself. To change it, another person outside it is needed.
Emotional discharge alone is not enough, as emotions are locked in memories of past situations and maintain psycho-emotional tension. Psychotherapy helps these situations to emerge and, as far as possible, to work them out, to find solutions to affects, to react to emotions and to symbolise them verbally, visually, organically.
Results of Successful Psychotherapy
- The individual can get back in touch with archaic desires and needs
- The individual feels as a whole, unified
- The perspective on past experiences changes
- Opportunity to come into contact with the personal impulses of life projects opens up
- Manifestations of autoimmune system disorders go into remission
Psychoneuroimmunology
The fact that the immune system interacts with the central nervous system (CNS) and the endocrine system in both directions — receiving and giving impulses — has been the focus of researchers for more than two decades. Psychoneuroimmunology has emerged as an interdisciplinary branch of science that studies the relationship between the psyche and the patient's neurological, endocrine and immune systems, or the interaction between psychological and behavioural factors, the nervous system, the immune system and the endocrine system.
Discover the Complete Western Medicine Approach
This introduction only scratches the surface. Our book "Integrative Medicine in the Treatment of Autoimmune and Inflammatory Diseases" provides comprehensive protocols, herbal formulas, acupuncture points, and detailed treatment strategies for each autoimmune condition.
Treatment of Autoimmune Diseases
An integrative and holistic approach to treating autoimmune diseases, combining Western medical science with traditional healing practices for comprehensive patient care.
- Innovative pain management strategies
- Integration of Eastern and Western philosophies
- Evidence-based chronic disease treatment
- Practical guidance for professionals
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