Create a Warrior Strong Immune System

No matter how strong your immune system is now you can create a warrior strong immune system.

By Dr Michelle Kerr Patrick

To anyone that is sick or was sick I am so sorry that you are/were sick, and I hope you get better ASAP.  I know there is so much sickness going around right now between the flu, the “crud”, the stomach bugs, the strep throat, and bronchitis. Enough that AL has declared a public health emergency because of our high numbers of flu outbreak. And enough that AL Mamas, Daddies, nurses, and doctors all get a huge shout out for caring for everyone who is sick – it is soooo super, no sleep, heart breakingly tough.  But when I see the emails from the state health department to hospitals/schools encouraging dependence on their medical system and I hear people talking fearfully in the hallways about not wanting to leave their homes, and I read posts on Facebook about schools shutting down bcs so many people have the flu it bothers me.

It bothers me because first my heart breaks for all the people who are already sick, were sick, or who will get sick. And secondly, it bothers me because pieces of the message are wrong, and people are scared because they simply don’t know. Thus, there is a hidden undercurrent of fear that if you aren’t looking for it you won’t “see” it because it is so normal. So, I wanted to take a moment and say what I felt like all of these news feeds, reports, conversations, and posts should be saying and aren’t because anytime things get bad or tough we all need a little reminder.

1. Your body is amazing, incredible, amazing, incredible, and amazing. You have an incredible immune system that encounters huge numbers of bacterial and viral germs, fungi, and parasites every day, and it kills them so that you never get sick or when you do get sick it goes to battle and wins.

2. There are things that you can do to boost your immune system so that it can be strong. We should all be doing everything we can to have warrior strong immune systems, but unfortunately the average American lifestyle does everything it can to compromise our immune system. Most people don’t even know they are making day to day choices that make it more likely for them to get sick. They don’t know they have some influence here, so they are scared because they think sickness and disease is something that just happens to them versus something that they at least sometimes have a vote in.  Plus, the things you want to be doing to boost your immune system are simple and inexpensive – things that you and your kids CAN do.  (Keep reading for a list of things you can do.)

3. You don’t need something from the outside that contains toxic ingredients and negatively alters your immune system response to somehow protect your body from the flu. When they tell people, you need a flu shot it makes it sound like you are incapable of having protection on your own. It makes people forget they have an immune system. It promotes doubt in your bodies amazing & incredible healing potential.

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4. I want to let you know that I’ve also seen patients that are NOT getting sick or that did get a little bit sick, but only for a few hours, or they got a little run down but only mildly for a few days and never got hit hard.  When we exaggerate and say, ‘Man, everyone is sick!’ even if it’s just to ourselves in our head it promotes fear that we will be too but when we look at the truth that not everyone is sick, it promotes hope.

So, most of these reports are listing the top things you should do to avoid the flu with #1 being “Get your flu shot!  It’s not too late!”  Remember this is after research has shown the flu shot to be less than 10% effective, plus it impacts your immune system response negatively and includes toxic ingredients… So, what should you do?  Here’s some ideas:

• Recognize the fear mentality promoted in our media and medical advertising.  Look for it.  Ask yourself ‘What is true?’  Is this coming out of fear?   How many times in your life has fear accurately depicted anything to you?  Doesn’t it always make it worse than it really is?  Always, right?!    Do you get where I’m going here?  I hope the above paragraphs have pointed out some of the underlying hidden fear currents and some opposing truths.

• Create in yourself and your family warrior strong immune systems because you can’t prevent yourself or your family from encountering germs, but you can create a strong fortress of protection via your immune system:

1. Get chiropractic adjustments regularly.  Chiropractic adjustments have been scientifically shown to improve the function of your immune system by 40-200% depending on how long you stick with your regular adjustments and how poor off your immune system was to start with.
2. Avoid sugar like the plague.  Sugar depletes the function of your immune system drastically.  Think 40-75% drastically for 6 hours after consumption.  Is whatever you or your kids are wanting worth risking getting the flu over?  You are not being a mean mama by telling your kiddo no to that soda, sweet tea, or cookie.  You are protecting their warrior strong immune system.
3. Eat lots of vegetables, lean protein, and healthy fats to give your body the vitamins and minerals it needs to build and fuel a warrior strong immune system.  These are nutrient dense foods – foods that will give you a lot of bang for your buck because they are full of zinc, vitamin C, vitamin A, vitamin B6, vitamin E, vitamin D, iron, folic acid, and selenium.  You only have so much room in your stomach before you feel full, so you can fill up on foods with low nutritional value or high nutritional value.  Carbs will fill you up with almost no nutritional value and guess what?  They just break down into sugar and now we are back to #2.  Fruit?  It has fructose – a natural form of sugar – so if you’re sick or trying not to get sick, consume small amounts of fruit.
4. Avoid dairy.  Dairy is mucogenic in nature, which means it causes your body to produce more mucus.  If you’re already sick, congested, stuffy, or coughing up phlegm, you’ve got mucus, which makes this one a no-brainer.
5. Drink half your body weight in fluid ounces of water.  Not juice.  Not flavored water with artificial sweeteners.  Not milk.  Not sweet tea (see #2!).  Not coffee.  Think of your body, a living organism that is 80% water, like a gold fish bowl.  What happens to the water in the gold fish bowl after a week?  It gets dirty right?  What would happen to your gold fish if you never changed the water?  We know to keep your goldfish healthy you need to change the water regularly.  Your body is no different.  Drinking half your body in fluid ounces of water every day is your way of changing out the water in your gold fish bowl.
6. When there’s a lot going around take echinacea preventatively.  As opposed to vitamin C, echinacea can be taken long term without loosing its effectiveness.  Save your high doses of vitamin C for when you actually get sick.  A good, high-quality echincea should cause a tingly sensation on your tongue.   Don’t take echinacea if you are pregnant or nursing.
7. Exercise.  It helps your heart and lungs be healthier.  Is it really a surprise that it helps your immune system be healthier too?  Exercise helps your immune system by providing a boost to the cells in your body that are assigned to attack invaders like bacteria.  You don’t have to run a marathon, but studies show 20-30 minutes of movement (as simple as walking) a day helps.
8. Rest.  Get 8-10 hours of rest each night.  Kids need more.  It can be so hard to prioritize rest, but as one wise friend recently reminded me rest is not doing nothing.  Rest is when your body does most of its healing.
9. Minimize your stress.  We’ve all worn ourselves down so much at some point that we got sick.  Prioritize your health and take some of the other things off your to do list.
10. Avoid toxins.  Most of the time when I bring this up people think they don’t have toxins in their life, but I think the one most pertinent to this discussion is toxins in the form of genetically modified foods that destroy the health of your gut which is where 80% of your immune system is housed.  The “bugs” (bacteria, viruses, fungi, parasites) that live in your gut compose your microbiome.  Having good “bugs” here give you a strong immune system.  Having “bad” bugs here make you more likely to have disease.  Which disease depends on which bad bug you have combined with your genes and lifestyle choices.  How do genetically modified foods damage your microbiome?  Genetically modified foods DNA have been altered by inserting the DNA of a non-plant species (animal, virus, etc.) so that the plant can be sprayed with pesticides, herbicides, &/or insecticides and not die.  These toxic chemicals are incorporated into the food part of the plant and then you consume them or in some cases like GM corn the food is genetically changed to produce the insecticide itself.  GM corn produces within its corn kernels Bt-toxin.  When a bug bites into GM corn it eats the Bt-toxin and it causes the insects stomach to explode.  I’ll let you think about if this is something you want to eat – Bt-toxin loaded GM corn…  But for the majority of GM foods they are altered to tolerate roundup.  Roundup works on a chemical pathway that plants have and we as people don’t.  But, do you know who does?  The “bugs” in our microbiome have the chemical pathway roundup acts on.  So, when you eat GM foods that have been sprayed with roundup it kills some of the good “bugs” in your gut weakening your immune system.  This is why I recommend people take probiotics all the time unless they are eating a completely organic, non-GMO diet.   Another hard hitter to a healthy microbiome are antibiotics.  One round of antibiotics takes your microbiome 2 years to recover and rebalance from.  So, while antibiotics can be good and lifesaving, don’t overuse them.  Ask yourself if the benefit is worth 2 years of a weakened immune system and contributing to the creation of antibiotic resistant superbugs.
11. Take a probiotic regularly.  See #10.  Rotate your probiotic.  Your microbiome is diverse.  Rotate your probiotic to support a diverse, warrior immune system strong microbiome.
12. And yes, do these other things that are on the lists going around.  Like I said, some of their message is wrong, but absolutely not all of it

• Stay at home if you have a fever.  Please, don’t just go to urgent care and get a steroid shot & a z-pack so that you can feel better enough to go back to work tomorrow or even the same day.  You are still sick despite the fact that you feel better.  Go home so you don’t spread the germs, rest, and allow your body the time it needs to allow your immune system to work and heal.
• Wash your hands:  like with actual soap and water.  Don’t just use hand sanitizer that is chalk full of toxic ingredients.
• Cover your cough and sneeze.
• Clean and disinfect.
• Learn home care.
• Stop smoking.  This is an easy thing to write on a list of things people should do to be healthy, but a very hard thing to accomplish.  If you’ve tried before and failed, try looking at it as a success versus a failure.  On average it takes people trying to stop 7 times before they successfully do, so you’re successfully one step closer.   Don’t let this past failure dictate that you can’t do it.  Just because you couldn’t once doesn’t mean you can’t now.  It’s like learning to tie your shoe.  None of us could do it the first time, but we all can do it now.  If you’re in the process know you’re making a huge improvement to your health and give yourself a pat on the back for the progress you’ve already made.  Stopping smoking is a tough thing to do, but I’ve seen several people successfully quit over the years.

Wherever you find yourself right now, fighting to not get sick or already sick, warrior on with the gratitude of knowing your immune system is fighting hard for you whether it’s keeping you well or fighting to get you back to well.  And going forward, I hope you feel empowered by remembering the strength of your amazing body & by having a few tips for creating a warrior strong immune system in your pocket.

Warrior On Alabamians!  Warrior On!