I have found one of the biggest frustrations with RA patients is that traditional treatment approaches seem palliative at best. Many seek answers beyond medication regimens on what they can do to treat the disease. In this blog I will explain how functional medicine offers new insight into this disease and will shed some light on the (hidden) causes of RA and what you can do about it.
If you have been suffering from chronic joint pain and/or have recently been diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis (RA), then this blog series will shed some light on the disease and what you can do about it.
In today’s functional medicine practice, practitioners like myself are confronted with a myriad of chronic inflammatory conditions and autoimmune diseases. Functional medicine is often referred to as "systems medicine" as it understands the importance of assessing and treating all systems individually, while also keeping the interconnectedness of these systems in mind. When dealing with autoimmunity however, one system in particular, the gastrointestinal system, appears to have more and more clinical relevance with autoimmunity, especially with a condition called leaky gut.
Here in part 2, we look at the science behind gluten’s inflammatory effects and why it effects some of us and not others.
