Autoimmune Symptoms That Fly Under the Radar: A Functional Medicine Approach
Episode Summary
Autoimmune disease often starts as a pile of symptoms that look unrelated. Fatigue, brain fog, joint pain on both sides of the body, rashes that will not clear, mouth sores, dryness and low-grade fevers each get sent to a different specialist while nobody steps back to look at the whole picture. Colin Renaud, PA-C joins Leah to explain what happens when the immune system starts targeting the body's own tissue, why autoimmune thyroid disease (Hashimoto's) is the pattern most people recognize first, and how gut health, chronic stress, past trauma, mold or toxin exposure and nutrient gaps can turn a genetic susceptibility into a real diagnosis. He also covers the labs he orders, what a flare actually feels like, the signs a support plan is working, and why a clear timeline of expectations matters as much as the treatment.
Key Topics
- 1
Autoimmune symptoms that get missed
- 2
Multi-system symptom patterns
- 3
Hashimoto's and thyroid antibodies
- 4
Gut health and immune function
- 5
Chronic stress and trauma as triggers
- 6
Autoimmune flares
- 7
Autoimmune lab markers
- 8
Setting expectations of care
Quotable Moments
“many patients will live with symptoms for many, many years without getting clear answers”
“the fever especially is a sign that the immune system is just kind of cranking”
“a lot of patients with suspected or potential autoimmune driven issues are often, in my experience, they can be gaslit by the medical community where they're sort of dismissed.”
“patients with autoimmune conditions often live with a certain baseline level of something, a percentage of pain, a percentage of fatigue.”
“they're not necessarily upset that they have to continue to struggle. They're upset that they don't know what the plan is or they don't know what the expectation of care is.”
Treatments Mentioned
FAQ
Chronic Illness FAQ
Colin Renaud, PA-C says the strongest clue is symptoms that cross several body systems at once instead of staying in one place. He points to fatigue, brain fog and word recall trouble, joint pain that shows up in the same joint on both sides, swelling in the hands or feet, digestive problems, rashes that will not go away, mouth sores, dryness in the mouth or eyes, hair loss in a round patch, temperature sensitivity, food reactions and low-grade fevers when you are not sick. He is clear the list is not exhaustive and that any single one of these can have a different cause.
Not by itself. Renaud says normal labs often get used to close the door too early, and in the past six months he has seen several women with debilitating fatigue, low-grade fevers and pain all over whose labs looked completely normal. He explains that autoimmune patterns tend to build gradually, so symptoms can show up well before a diagnosis can be confirmed. His advice is to keep asking questions rather than accept that nothing is wrong.
Renaud runs a full thyroid panel including thyroid antibodies (TPO and thyroglobulin), looks at patterns in the complete blood count, and checks vitamin D, B12, iron and ferritin plus blood sugar markers. For immune activity he uses general screening markers such as ANA (antinuclear antibody), rheumatoid factor and C-reactive protein, then disease-specific autoantibodies like anti-CCP for rheumatoid arthritis or ANCA for blood vessel inflammation. He says Med Matrix includes inflammatory and autoimmune markers on the initial blood draw for new patients, with gut testing or infection screening added later when the picture calls for it.
Renaud says the gut has its own immune system and sits very close to immune function overall, and that this link is heavily researched in the medical literature rather than a functional medicine talking point. An imbalance in gut bacteria (dysbiosis), poor digestion or food reactions can all drive inflammation that changes how the immune system signals. He names gluten as one of the most common drivers behind autoimmune thyroid disease.
Like something you already live with, turned way up. Renaud describes patients carrying a baseline percentage of pain or fatigue, then climbing from roughly 25% to 75% intensity during a flare, with joint pain, swelling, gut symptoms, brain fog or headaches all getting worse. A flare might last a day or it might run for months. Part of his job is finding what set it off, whether that is a food sensitivity, mold or something else in the person's environment.
Renaud watches for fewer and shorter flares, better energy and sleep, clearer thinking, easier digestion, less joint stiffness and fewer skin breakouts. Faster recovery counts too: a flare that used to take a week now settles in a day. He also tracks lab trends, with inflammatory markers coming down and nutritional markers improving. The measure he cares about most is day-to-day function, meaning whether someone can get to work and get through a normal day again.
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