Allergies / Autoimmunity

An allergy is an immune system over-reaction to an allergen. An allergen is defined as something that causes an allergic response. But clearly, the allergen is not the cause of the allergy. If it were, we would all be allergic to cats, dogs, pollen, sunlight, and anything that anybody else is allergic to.

The real culprit in an allergy situation is found in the systems that control the immune response itself. This involves the balance of activity in the endocrine glands, especially the pituitary, thymus and adrenal glands. The original source of hyperimmune activity is likely to be a viral infection that the immune system has been unable to fully resolve, thus creating a situation where immunity is locked in a state of high activity in which it will react to things it would normally ignore.

This is also the case in auto immune disorders such as multiple sclerosis, rheumatoid arthritis, Crohn’s disease, ankylosing spondylitis and the like, where one’s own tissues come to be regarded by the immune system as the enemy.

Controlling these situations with immunosuppressant drugs can bring temporary relief, but long-term use of these preparations makes a person susceptible to increased infection and further complications in the endocrine axis.

Our approach is to use chiefly acupuncture-based treatment to balance and align endocrine activity and thereby re-educate and refocus immune response.