AutoimmuneErin

Truth on so many levels!
There never is an end in Chronic Illness. It is so hard trying to plan for that perfect day- especially when you don’t know when that will be. There is always something whether it be feeling unwell, another appointment, bloodwork, scans, surgery, therapy. There never is an end and sometimes you just need to take that that leap of faith and hope for the best. It may work out great and it may not, but you tried. Remember to let your breathe!

🩸Periods. The word itself scares me after years of excruciating pain, heavy bleeding and the many comorbidities that come along with endometriosis and adenomyosis pelvic pain. So of course, I’m always up for trying new and innovated pain management therapies. Anything that can help get me through the painful weeks.

🤩 Ovira recently sent me a beautiful welcome package! This was something I hadn’t tried yet. Ovira uses pulse therapy. TENS, transcutaneous electric nerve stimulation has be used for decades in the medical field to relive pain. Most commonly seen in physiotherapy offices, it works by overloading the nervous system thus reducing and fuzzing the pain signals to your brain.

🗝 I have to admit I was a little terrified of the idea of electrical pulses anywhere near my pelvic area. I applied the love handles and started Ovira on the lowest setting and went up a few notches so it wasn’t uncomfortable but that I could still feel it. To my surprise, the pulses became soothing like a massage. And, I was able to fall a-s-l-e-e-p! Completely unexpected and very welcomed!

♥️ My Favourite Things About Ovira:
1. It’s Portable & Very Light weight
2. It’s Drug-Free
3. It’s Comfortable & Discreet
4. It’s Backed by Science

🙏🏽 Ovira will be great to have onboard during my upcoming laparoscopy recovery to help alleviate pain! Super thankful to Ovira and happy to say she’s officially a part of my pain management team.

🔬Medical Historians identify the mid-20th century as the time when science and the medical community first recognized Autoimmune Disease. Although the first diseases were proposed in the early 1900’s. These were both of the eye and included sympathetic ophthalmia and endophthalmitis phacoanaphylactica. It was the contributions to ocular immunity that really brought autoimmunity to a head-front.

❌ During the first half of the century autoimmune diseases were seen as biologically implausible. ”Horror Autotoxicous” was the term coined by Paul Ehrlich to emphasize that the idea that self-injury goes again nature.

⏳ It wasn’t until the 1950’s when Autoimmune Disease was really being recognized after studies of Thyroiditis and a series of clinical laboratory breakthroughs. Henry G. Kunkel studied patients with Rheumatoid Arthritis and Lupus and using newly developed tools in protein chemistry Kunkel and his coworkers were able to demonstrate that certain antibodies in the blood of people with rheumatoid arthritis reacted with other antibodies as if they were antigens (the rheumatoid factor). Soon following, Kunkel also discovered and characterized several autoantibodies in Lupus thereby debunking fundamental principles in immunology.

🤧 Discoveries of allergies and anaphylaxis lead to the first clues that the body’s immune system can indeed cause self-harm.

📝 The major obstacle was learning how the immune system was determining foreign invaders from self. This process was eventually understood as immune intolerance.

Ref Sources:
PMID: 27131478
http://centennial.rucares.org/index.php?page=Autoimmune_Diseases

Meet e-Patient Dave When Dave deBronkart learned he had a rare and terminal cancer, he turned to a group of fellow patients online -- and found the medical treatment that saved his life. Now he calls on all patients to talk with one another, know their own health data, and make health care better one e-Patient at a tim...