Why doesn't your doctor know about autoimmune disease?

Good question - you should ask THEM!

I get asked all the time questions like "why doesn't my doctor know about this?"

I see a lot of complex cases (meaning you have multiple symptoms - anxiety, bloating, fatigue, pain, brain fog) who have had some version of the same experience with the conventional medical field - they have been told "It's anxiety", "It's depression", "Your labs look great", "It's just allergies" (with no testing)... or they've been passed from endocrinology to rheumatology to gastroenterology and still left empty-handed - "We don't see anything wrong. Maybe it's stress." Meanwhile they still have the same symptoms. Unfortunately, our conventional system has very few answers for autoimmune disease outside of biologics like Humira or steroids like Prednisone.

Autoimmune diseases are affecting 1 in 5 adult Americans. 75% of these are women. It is a leading cause of disability, a leading cost burden on our healthcare system, and a leading cause of death. These include diseases like Lupus, Rheumatoid Arthritis, Type 1 Diabetes, Multiple Sclerosis, Autoimmune Thyroid Diseases (Hashimoto's, Grave's), Celiac Disease, Crohn's Disease, and over 100 more.

The MS patient sees the neurologist. The RA patient sees the rheumatologist. The Hashimoto's patient sees the endocrinologist, the Celiac patient sees the gastroenterologist. What about those undiagnosed, or with the 100 other autoimmune diseases that aren't mainstream medicine?

Specialists, while very knowledgable in their respective field(s), are generally unaware of the interrelationship between different physiological systems, and generally unaware of advances in fields outside of their specialty. They say a specialist "can quickly become someone who knows more and more about less and less."

The metaphor I like to use is that of a mechanic. Let's say you know someone who has been turning wrenches for 45 years, they know everything about cars. All makes, all models, and they can fix anything. They might even specialize in American muscle cars or German cars.

IF YOU TAKE THEM YOUR ELECTRIC TESLA, THEY WON'T BE ABLE TO FIX IT.

They might be able to change the tires, they might be able to figure some stuff out, but they are NOT familiar with it and they do NOT know how to fix it.

And 20 years ago if you told that same mechanic friend that soon there would be an electric car that can smoke a Corvette in a 1/4 mile drag race, they would have laughed in your face, but here we are today.

20 years ago if you told a medical doctor you would be taking probiotics for IBS, let alone something like depression or allergies they would have told you that you were crazy, that's snake oil, it's quackery, but now the most cutting-edge modern scientific research supports the idea and it is not uncommon practice. Some people will still say that though!

The science is out there, and it isn't "alternative". The science is published in the most prestigious journals like Nature, Science, Clinical Immunology, Nature Reviews, Frontiers. Two of my biggest mentors in the autoimmune disease world (Datis Kharrazian PhD, DC, DHSc; Samuel Yanuck DC, FACFN, FIAMA) are on staff at Harvard and UNC Medical Schools, researching, publishing, and teaching this exact autoimmune disease information to doctors who are willing to go outside of the conventional model to learn it.

So, if you are wondering why your doctor (or friend, or anyone) doesn't know more about autoimmunity, it's because they haven't chosen to learn about it yet, not because "they don't believe in it". The science is there!