Hi, my name is Cheyenne and I have an autoimmune disease. Actually, a lot of people in the United States have an autoimmune disease, 20 percent of the population to be exact—that’s one in every five people. Autoimmune diseases occur when your body’s own immune system starts fighting back against your body’s healthy cells, resulting in various kinds of reactions, illnesses, and disorders that range from rheumatoid arthritis and psoriasis to IBS and lupus.

Being diagnosed with an autoimmune can seem like the end of the world—I know I certainly felt like it was—and while it isn’t, it does mean that you’re going to experience some changes.

I don’t want to make light of something that can be a really dangerous and sometimes even deadly issue—autoimmune disease is no joke, it’s not something where you can just take a pill and forget about your problems. Then again, what is? Autoimmunity can be kick started by a variety of causes including diet, viruses, medications, drugs, etc, and the American Autoimmune Related Disease Association (AARDA) says that “it is theorized that the inflammation initiated by these agents, toxic or infectious, somehow provokes in the body a ‘sensitization’ (autoimmune reaction) in the involved tissues.”

In my case, this mean that a severe and rare reaction to a long-term antibiotic meant to treat my scarring acne led to an autoimmune response from my body in my digestive system. I’ll spare you the grisly details, but let’s just say it was not the most pleasant experience, and I am still in the process of recovering some two and half years later. Digestive organs aren’t the only organs that are affected by autoimmune disease, but if my reaction sounds familiar, you may know (or be) someone with celiac, crohn’s, or ulcerative colitis, all of which are forms of autoimmune diseases.

I know a lot of people who have various forms of autoimmune diseases: I have friends with crohn’s, IBSC, and type 1 diabetes, and relatives and family friends with RA and MS. The point is, autoimmune diseases touch almost everybody in the United States, even if they don’t have an autoimmune it’s more than likely that they know someone who does. What do you do when you’ve been diagnosed with an autoimmune? As someone who has lived with an autoimmune for several years and tried multiple treatment paths, here’s my advice.

Don’t Freak Out

We’re lucky to live in the 21^st century with advanced science and medicine, so the chances are looking pretty good that there is a treatment out there for the type of autoimmune that you have. Some types of autoimmune diseases can be severe enough to threaten your life, but for the most part autoimmune diseases aren’t the end of the world, they’re just a change of lifestyle.

Pursue Medical Treatment

The first thing you should do after being diagnosed with an autoimmune is talk with a doctor or specialist about what this means for your life. In some cases there may be special medications needed to treat your disease and keep things from progressing further so that you can start to focus achieving remission. If that sounds like cancer language, it’s because a lot of people with autoimmune diseases can find themselves “cured” of their autoimmune with a combination of lifestyle changes and anti-inflammatory or immunosuppressant drugs that are commonly used to treat cancer.

You may also want to talk to your doctor about a more natural and holistic approach to healing yourself. I was prescribed a lot of pills, none of which seemed to offer me long-term relief, and I didn’t like being on so many medications so I asked my GI doctor about ways I could treat my autoimmune with herbs and alternative medicine. I now manage my autoimmune with a combination of major lifestyle changes (I completely changed my diet—read more on that ahead), herbal supplements, food enzymes, probiotics, and alternative medicinal therapies like acupuncture and bio-meridian feedback.

Change Your Lifestyle

“Lifestyle” in my experience when you have an autoimmune is 50 percent diet, 25 percent treatment (like herbs, medicines, and therapies), and 25 percent physical activity. Only engaging one component isn’t going to get you very far. Because most autoimmune diseases are related to high levels of inflammation in the body treatments usually involve anti-inflammatory drugs, but you need to take it one step further and follow an anti-inflammatory diet as well.

I recommend following the Autoimmune Protocol diet (AIP) which shows you how to phase inflammatory foods out of your diet while replacing them with foods that are good for you and will help increase the rate of your healing. Some examples of inflammatory foods that you should avoid eating while treating your auto-immune are: grains, dairy, nightshades (tomatoes, eggplant, white potatoes, etc.), artificial sweeteners, and processed foods. Eating AIP is a big shift from the typical American diet, so you may have to phase it in slowly and change your grocery shopping habits, and it’s not an instant cure, but trust me when I say that after a few months eating as close to AIP guidelines (you may be able to make exceptions for certain nuts and fruit amounts) as possible you will be amazed with the difference.

Find What Fits You

Everyone is different, and everyone’s autoimmune is also different. I know people who have the same autoimmune that I do, and we all have different treatment styles because not everything works for everyone. The same is going to be true for whatever your autoimmune is, so find what fits you. Natural treatment might not be the way to go for you, and you may instead benefit more from having infusions of anti-inflammatory immunosuppressant drugs, and that’s only natural because bodies are different.

However, one thing that is not a matter of fit or negotiation is diet. If you have an inflammation aggravated autoimmune (which most are) you should not be eating inflammatory foods. Period. Think of it this way, if your car runs on gas you wouldn’t fill it with diesel, that’s not good for your car. Having an autoimmune is the same—inflammatory foods hurt an autoimmune person’s already inflamed and sensitive body and slow down the healing process.

There you have it. You’ve got an autoimmune. I’ve got an autoimmune. Actually, everybody has an autoimmune to some degree. It’s not the end of the world, and with proper treatment and lifestyle changes, you can live a “normal” life again. Now what? Anything is possible.