Dealing with autoimmune reaction "Lichen Ruber"
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I'm trying to make sense of how to deal with Lichen Ruber, an autonimmune skin disease. It's triggered by stress, both chemical and mechanical. In my own case it followed a SIBO infection, which in turn might have down regulated my metabolism, at least it sustainably down regulated my HRV by 20-40ms measured by my Garmin every night.
Now apart from the obvious, reducing stress where possible and adjusting nutrition to more tolerable foods, I tried to use aspirin to counter the impact of stress, and I felt it works also for the lichen. However, on day three after some 500mg aspirin I tend to get another flare up of the lichen. I looked it up and aspirin is known to be a potential trigger for this disease. The only common treatment for lichen is cortisone cream.
Now how can a disease be caused by stress and cured by stress at the same time? And are there any other things I can do other than putting on a cortisone cream and hope for the best? -
Now how can a disease be caused by stress and cured by stress at the same time?
RP had spoken about cortisone' ability to (locally) raise blood sugar level.
https://raypeatexplained.com/ray-peat-on-adrenalin/
Unfortunately I don't have more advice to offer on this point.
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10178478/
This study suggests a basic association between Lichen Planus (Ruber) and diabetes, which would possibly implicate sugar utilization. Thiamine/B1 may be helpful, as well as weekly beef liver to increase the B vitamin level for sugar utilization, but this is just a guess.
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Now how can a disease be caused by stress and cured by stress at the same time?
Allegedly the falsely-termed autoimmune diseases are ultimately infectious disease. You will find more about that by looking up things about cell-wall-deficient, L(ondon)-form bacteria and the depths and width of the metagenomic discoveries made by the Human Genome Project and later research.
Under such assumptions, antiinflammatory drugs will alleviate the symptoms of immune activity but only to worsen the disease progression as one shuts down the very immunity which tries to repress the underlying pathogens. In situations of stress and high cortisol overall immunity is severely dampened both directly and indirectly and many diseases fully surface only after such extaordinary episodes.
You will find many more hints on all that but very little openly outspoken.E.g. the way to induce study models of rosacea is by injecting the antimicrobial peptide cathelicidin=LL-37 into skin. There are also alternative pathways of excessive endoplasmatic reticulum (ER) stress leading to such "autoimmunity" which of course raises the question why at all baseline ER stress is so high and easily inducible. Iirc both PAMPS and DAMPS are involved and therefore also receptor action of endotoxins. Then there are findings about the Alzheimer/ tau-protein actually being an antimicrobial bodily substance. Or that rheumatic diseases also positively responds to antibiotic treatment targeted at obligate anaerobic bacteria et cetera.
The only common treatment for lichen is cortisone cream.
Under the assumptions above, topical application of ketoconazole or D3 (colecalciferol/calciol) will suppress symptoms as an alternative to cortisone cream whereas topical application of calcitriol will worsen the symptoms.
IMO the only mechanism by which cortisone may yield lasting benefit in such cases is by limiting the degree of immunity/inflammation in the short term, allowing for whatever cause to be cleared by the body without destroying itself in the course. Or by some kind of epigenetic reset wrt to the cellular sensitivity. Anyway, topical procain or lidocain may be an alternative to cortisone for that. -
@CrumblingCookie that is very interesting, first time hearing about this aspect of "auto"immune disease.
What you describe about the cortisone treatment pretty much summarized the attitude of my doctors, absolutely no interest in the underlaying process, just hoping it'd go away in the meantime. I don't blame them tho, it's a hell of a job.
Actually think it might not be the worst course of action: let the cortisone keep it down while I get healthy in the back. Just gotta find out how to do that