Echinacea | Arthritis Information

 

All of the discussions about the effect of immune system boosters has really got me wondering.  I was a huge proponent of echinacea, and have been so for at least ten years.  I was "Dr. Mom" giving it to anyone who was sick, and taking it myself at the first sign of a scratchy throat or stuffy nose. 

My immune system has been amazing too.  I have worked for years with children, at the nursery school and elementary school level, wiping running noses for a living!  And I almost never catch colds or other viruses.  I would be curious to know from others, before you started taking drugs to suppress your immune system, were you like me, a person who almost never caught colds or other bugs?

So my quandry is, did I bring on my autoimmune thyroid disease and possible PA (see the doctor tomorrow) by over-stimulating my immune system through years of using echinacea?  I know autoimmune diseases run in families - and there is certainly a history of it in my family.  But did I fire up my immune system and activate my problems?


Wow Hillhoney...I think you just asked the million dollar question! I would be really interested to find out if there has been any research on that.

I did not get sick a lot and I worked in the medical field.  It was when my immune system started to go haywire that I would pick up bugs a little more easily.  Now with the immune suppressing drugs I need to take out stock in hand sanitizer and disinfecting wipes lol.

I am not sure about boosting your immune system til it goes haywire.  Interesting theory tho. 

Hillhoney, I have wondered the exact same thing. I am a nurse and have
worked on a medical floor for 18 years. I never got a cold or any bug for
about 5 years before my diagnosis and I thought that I had this super
dooper immune system. When I was diagnosed, my rheumatologist made
the comment that he was disturbed at the number of health care
professionals he was diagnosing with auto immune diseases. I have been
told to stay away from echinacea and B vitamins and to be careful of many of
the herbal remedies on the market. This is a very good question and I'm
sure it will be researched.

Thank you !!!! I have been wondering about this. I was a huge advocate of echinacea and Airborne. I was always popping them. I am always with children and I travel a lot.

I was at the gynie yesterday and she happened to mention.."Stay away from herbal supplements....especially echinancia.

It would stand to reason, in my mind, that there very much IS a connection here. Wouldn't it seem to make sense that possibly over-loading your body on something that made your body over-produce immune cells could make it....short circuit, so to speak? It's pretty well known that in cancer research, when certain cells are stimulated into "over-growth" they quickly form into a cancer. - Just to clarify, I'm not necessarily saying a bad cancer...but ANY cell that grows too rapidly, or in excess, is considered a cancer. That logic just kinda seems to fit here...at least to me! That does make sense since what the biologics suppress is the Tumor Necrosis Factor (TNF). 

Wow Lorster...that is an interesting idea..I am a nurse to...and I was working in the ER. I was seeing patients with everything from superinfections to tons of people with colds, the flu, strep throats, pnuemonias, TB, those pukey stomach viruses...you name it...and in the ER..we are holding their hand..wipeing their face...we are all up in it. Holding sick babies that spit their medicine back in your face...literally. I cant even count how many times I was exposed to meningitis.

And I was NEVER sick...

Granted RA does run in my family...but mine is much, much worse than my moms or my aunts. Neither of them are on anything more than OTC med and my mom was dx'd as a child over 50 yrs ago, and her sister was dxd 30 years ago in her early 20s.

I have failed 2 biologics and I was only diagnosed a year ago. Big difference in the aggresiveness of my RA vs. my moms.

I know from now on this "Dr. Mom" will no longer be dispensing echinacea to my family, since they have autoimmune diseases in their family history. 

Just think, all those years we thought we were superwomen who never got sick, maybe we were in the early stages of an overactive immune system!???
I was young when I got JRA, but until then I was hardly ever
sick. My sister got a horribly contagious form of pneumonia and
had to be put in isolation in the hospital and they thought it was
crazy that I never got sick....even though we shared a room,
toys, etc.[QUOTE=GenaRogers]

Thank you !!!! I have been wondering about this. I was a huge advocate of echinacea and Airborne. I was always popping them. I am always with children and I travel a lot.

I was at the gynie yesterday and she happened to mention.."Stay away from herbal supplements....especially echinancia.

[/QUOTE]

Everyone tries to push echinacia on me to "make me feel better".  I get tired of explaining to them that for a person that has rheum arthritis it is bad to take it.

So, the next question is...can we burn our immune systems out? If this is
left untreated, what happens? I'm just not sure what is worse, an over active
immune system...or an underactive one. I went to a nursing seminar about a
year ago. The speaker talked about americans and other highly developed
countries being too clean. We want to kill every bug that comes our way.
This speaker said it may be our downfall because we are killing more good
bugs than bad. He said that when the immune system becomes bored,
because we have killed everything, the immune system finds something else
to attack, that being healthy cells. It made sense to me. I came home and
threw out all my antibacterial soaps and lotions. I'm not sure if I should try
to get bugs so that my immune system will stay entertained and not pick on
my joints. This is probably a crazy theory but there has to be an
explanation and hopefully soon it can be explained.This is very interesting. I havent had the flu for 15 years. I always got the flu shot. Last year before I was diagnosed with RA I got the flu even though I had the shot.

Also, I am a clean freak. I even wash lettuce when it comes in a pre-washed package. It's worse now that I am on these meds. Maybe I should be giving all this cleaning a second thought.
Thinkthinn...I'm a clean freak too even though I'm trying not to be because I
feel that it is part of the problem now. I guess when you are a nurse, you
get so used to washing your hands everytime you do anything. I bet I wash
my hands 100 times a day when I work.
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