Article from The Woman’s Guide to a Stronger Immune System … More Health & Happiness. A Jeunessima Magazine Special … FREE until April 30!
Your body tends to warn you when your immune system is not working properly. Use these signs to check in with your own immune system.
Our immune system is a wonderful creation of nature.
It not only protects you. It also lets you know when it has some problems.
Unfortunately, we have lost the ability to listen to what our immune system, our body is saying, and only become aware of its challenges when they become more severe.
Immune-mediated diseases can be mild and simmer for years causing damage to your health and speed up aging.
Here are some signs that you need an immune system boost.
You Feel Tired All the Time
There are times when you work much harder than usual, or you have changed your lifestyle and have become significantly more active than previously.
These are times when feeling tired is normal.
But if you feel exhausted and tired all the time, your body is probably trying to tell you that it needs to prioritize another activity like fighting germs or another emergency in your body than keeping your energy levels up.
You Seem to Catch Every Cold
Are you frequently suffering from a sore throat? Do you catch a cold more than 2 or 3 times a year?
Then your immune system is struggling. It might not be strong enough to deal with the viruses, bacteria, fungi, or other pathogens that you are exposed to … or it might be a sign that the amount of those germs is overwhelming.
You Are Sicker, Longer
Your body can generally deal with a cold within 7 to 10 days. After that, you should be back to your healthy, vibrant self.
If your cold just doesn’t want to go away … or other diseases take significantly longer to heal than expected … a weakened immune system is likely to blame.
You Keep Suffering from Infections
It is not only frequent common colds or the flu that indicate that your immune system needs a boost.
The American Academy of Allergy Asthma & Immunology also warns that you might suffer from immunodeficiency if you …
- Have more than 4 ear infections in one year
- Suffer from more than 3 episodes of bacterial sinusitis in a year or your sinusitis has become chronic
- Need to take more than 2 courses of antibiotics per year. … Considering though that even after half a year not all the good bacteria in your gut have fully recovered and your gut is essential for a healthy immune system, even 1 course of antibiotics should be a call to action to help your immune system
- Need preventative antibiotics as you keep getting infections •
- Develop unusually severe infections even though they started as a common bacterial infection
- Got pneumonia a second time … in your life
Additional recurring infections that indicate that your immune system is out of balance are …
- Urinary tract infections (UTI)
- Fungal infections including those on your skin or thrush in your mouth
Your Wounds Heal Slowly
When you got a cut, a burn, even a sunburn, and your skin heals only very slowly, your immune system is a bit sluggish.
The same is true of other injuries or surgery wounds, but you do need to keep the severity of the injury or surgery in mind, as your immune system is working very hard on healing that as well.
So, check with your doctor to see if your wounds heal slower than can be expected normally.
You Have Digestive Issues
Are you experiencing frequent gas, constipation or diarrhea, loss of appetite, or abdominal cramps?
This is bad news as about 70% of your immune tissue sits in your digestive system. And if this is not working well, your immune system will struggle.
You Have Allergies
As an allergy is an overreaction of the immune system, it is an obvious sign that your immune function is out of balance.
Your Skin Is Acting up
Your skin plays a part in body defense. If you find yourself battling skin problems like eczema (atopic dermatitis), psoriasis, scleroderma, or vitiligo, this is a sign that your immune system is in trouble.
You Have an Autoimmune Disease
As the name already says, an autoimmune disease, is a disease related to a faulty immune system. In this case, your body doesn’t recognize your own healthy cells and attacks them.
Common autoimmune diseases include rheumatoid arthritis, celiac disease, type 1 diabetes, inflammatory bowel syndrome (IBD), but also hepatitis, multiple sclerosis, lupus, Grave’s disease, and others.
Inflammation & Blood Disorders
Some immune system disorders can only be detected when they are measured.
This is the case with low platelet counts or anemia, for instance.
Another challenge that the majority of people face is inflammation.
Having inflammation means that your body is fighting some battle.
If this occurs only occasionally, it merely means your immune function is optimum.
But if your body is inflamed continuously, there is something wrong in your body … and … in addition to aging significantly quicker, you are also much more likely to suffer from a range of different diseases.
Diseases that develop from chronic inflammation include, among others, diabetes, cardiovascular diseases, arthritis, and joint diseases, allergies, and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD).
3 of 5 people die because they had a chronic inflammatory disease like obesity, diabetes, heart disorders, chronic respiratory disease, stroke, or cancer.
Inflammation is an excellent indicator that your immune system is calling for help.
So, watching your inflammation level is always a good idea.
A common way to measure inflammation in your body is to conduct a blood test for C-reactive protein (CRP), ideally high-sensitivity CRP (hsCRP). While it might not indicate that you have chronic inflammation, it gives you an idea of your health at that moment.
Have you detected any of the signs above in your own body?
Then your immune system function is probably out of balance.
Are any of the signs happening repeatedly or over a long period of time? Or are you suffering from several of those signs at the same time?
Then, don’t wait around.
Get into action now and help your immune system to get back to its naturally healthy, balanced state.