Two types of Immune quality or immune vulnerability determine your immune strategy! Which are you!?!
Some people think of Immunity as a force field around the body. There is such a force..The acupuncturists call this "Wei chi". It is the strength of your body to push away, resist or fight pathogens..It is the culmination of all of your body's metabolism and heat, thoughts, emotions and experience. It creates your aura and energy field. This is true and one type of immune strength or vulnerability..But there are two types of immunity issues. One is "immuno-deficiency" which means you are weak and lacking the energy to fight off disease..The other one "immuno-excess"...It means your immune system is already overloaded and working overtime..It has less to do with the deficiency of the force field and more to do with excess inflammation internally.. In this case the body is already overloaded with inflammation and toxicity, so much so, that the body can't fight any other invader....If your hands are full it's hard to push away an aggressive invader. This is what happens to many empires. They are so big, they ultimately fail because they can't regulate all of their colonies..so they are vulnerable to attack..This happens with people too and has more to do with an excess of energy, poorly managed rather than deficiency. I see this with people who have allergies, asthma..people who are overweight, and people who are toxic for one reason or another. It could be that they are eating foods that they are sensitive to. It could be that they have built up emotional issues. Usually it is a combination of many factors, diet, stress, lack of exercise etc. For these types of people we do elimination diets and detoxify them. To try and boost their immunity with adaptogens or immune boosting herbs is a poor choice in treatment strategy. Those are for people who have deficiency. The first action for the excess types is dietary regulation. Often, getting rid of gluten, dairy, corn, soy, sugar and coffee is the first strategy. After that, the recommendations become more specific. SO, remember immunity can be from deficiency or excess in the body ! One has to determine, where in the body the excess is and where the deficiency is and then treat the person accordingly. We do this best with acupuncture, herbal medicine and Autonomic Response Testing!!!!