I want to share with you something I just discovered...
The FDA has found that several arthritis drugs that are used to treat inflammation increases the risk of cancer in adolescents if they’re used for more than about 2, 2-1/2 years.
You can get the original article here.
What medications are we talking about?---Embrel, Humira, Remicaid. What do these things do? They manipulate your immune system.... but they do it in a way that’s very ham-fisted.
It’s like a bull in a china closet. Reckless and unfocused.
This is one of my big beefs with treating people that have arthritic conditions or inflammatory conditions with these type of medications---it can give you cancer! (if that’s not reason enough.)
What most of these medications do is suppress your immune system. Inflammation is your immune system. You don’t have inflammation without your immune system. So I just wanted to connect those dots for you.
When I’m dealing with kids and people that have inflammatory problems--be it Irritable Bowel Syndrome or Ulcerative Colitis, or Rheumatoid Arthritis-- the immune system has to be our focus and we have to find out first if they’re autoimmune.
Autoimmune means your immune system is attacking you by mistake.
*** If your immune system is already attacking one tissue, (like your cartilage, in the case of Rheumatoid Arthritis, or your intestinal lining in the case of Ulcerative Colitis or Irritable Bowel)...
That’s how these things work. It never just stops with one tissue.
So what I like to do when we see people that have these sorts of issues is find out and dissect what’s going on with your immune system--because you can do that. You can actually look and find out which way their immune system is skewed and find out why.
Now, I call that looking for a TH1 or a TH2 shift--because basically your immune system has got two divisions, kind of like a baseball team, or baseball league. You’ve got a TH1 and a TH2, or kind of like the American League and National League.
And you need both of those to have a league, right? Well, you’ve got TH1 and TH2. TH1 are like your T cells, and there’s a lot of different kinds, there’s regulatory T cells, helper T cells, natural killer cells, macrophages, and they’re kind of like the SWAT team. They’re the things that go in and do the killing.
Now over here you have TH2. The TH2 are your B cells and they don’t do any killing. They make antibodies. They’re like – antibodies are like Post-It Notes that are sent out with little suspect descriptions so that your immune system, your TH1, part of your immune system, can do a better job of finding and killing whatever the invader is.
So you’ve got to have both sides to have an accurate response. So let’s say, you know, that you get invaded by a virus or something. Well, to have an accurate response you’ve got to have both sides.
In an autoimmune condition this is what’s happened----one side is skewed-- and all heck has broken loose.
First, you need to find out if it’s happened. These are not weird exotic tests. You can get these from Lab Corp. The problem is no doctors are testing for it.
Why? Because there are no medications for it, (not in their eyes)
If they find out you have a TH2 shift, big deal...you’re still getting Remicaid.
TH1 shift? Big deal, you’re still getting Interferon.
But this new thing that’s just been published, this new black box warning from the FDA says, “You might want to be careful about that, especially in kids, because the last thing you want to do is give a kid who’s got Juvenile Rheumatoid Arthritis cancer from your treatment.”
Over the last couple of months, I was working with a family with a little girl diagnosed with Juvenile Rheumatoid Arthritis. We were trying to get some tests done and they wanted to have their insurance pay for it and they wanted to have a Rheumatologist order it.
I said, “Hey, you can do that, but here’s what’s gonna happen. You’re gonna go tell this person that you want to get these tests done and he’s gonna say, ‘You don’t need to have those done.’” -- And that is exactly what happened.
But when we finally did get them done, guess what we found out? She had an immune shift, she had a horrible gluten sensitivity. ---> She’s doing much, much better. She’s not going have to go on these types of medications.
The whole reason I’m bringing them up is no doctor that you know--that you’ve seen for your problem-- have done this testing. I’ll give you $100.00. I really will. I’ll give you $100.00 if they have any idea what I’m talking about.
And they may say, “Oh, we don’t need to do that. That doesn’t mean anything.” That’s because they don’t have a way to help you. Their only thing they have is medication.
And that’s great, that is a last resort option. I've had Rheumatologists tell my patients, “What you eat makes no difference. Eat whatever you want, just take this medication.”
Meanwhile they’re passing blood in their stool. And that is not good enough. I mean, I hope you pick that up. That’s not healthcare, okay?
I’ve got news for you, if you’re autoimmune, what you’re eating has a profound impact on your condition and whether it’s going to get better or not.
If you want to get more information about all these issues I’m talking about--email me or just hang around and subscribe to the pod casts, because I’m going to be doing more of this.
There is a huge need for this information because autoimmune conditions are epidemic.
I’ll bet you right now you know at least two people that are diagnosed with an autoimmune condition ...and you know three other people that have one and don’t even know it.
This is the place for answers. Dr. David Clark, I’ll be talking to you soon.
http://www.doctordavidclark.com New Website Will Be Live Soon!
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Dr. David Clark
214-341-3737
Functional Neurologist
Functional Endocrinologist
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