Dr. Bexi Lobo: Women’s health, autoimmune disease and beauty | Features

March is Women’s History month, dedicated to celebrating the contributions of women to society. March 8 is International Women’s Day, a day dedicated to the advancement of women worldwide.

Additionally, March is Autoimmune Awareness Month, dedicated to enhancing the understanding and recognition of autoimmune diseases. All timely because women are four times more likely than men to develop an autoimmune disease. 

Autoimmune Disease: What It Is & What Causes It

Autoimmune disease occurs when your body’s natural defense system, also known as your immune system, mistakenly attacks you. 

There are many types of autoimmune diseases. They’re typically defined by what organs and systems are affected and the type of damaged caused. Autoimmune diseases can be organ-specific (autoimmune thyroid disease) or systemic (rheumatoid arthritis, Sjogren’s disease). They all share one thing in common, a dysfunctional immune system.  

While you may be genetically predisposed to developing autoimmune disease (by being female or having certain genetic mutations), your environment and how safe it feels and actually is plays a major role in triggering autoimmune disease. 

Autoimmune Disease Symptoms & Diagnosis

There’s usually no single test to diagnose autoimmune disease. The diagnosis of an autoimmune disease is a big picture diagnosis that includes a detailed medical history, family history, physical examination, and laboratory tests.

It requires the clinician doing the diagnosing to be knowledgeable about, or at least have access to, accurate knowledge about the autoimmune disease in question. If you present with a textbook case of a largely well-researched autoimmune disease, consider yourself lucky. Most people struggle to get diagnosed and are only able to do so when enough damage has been done to be easily recognized and measured. 

Common symptoms of autoimmune disease include fatigue, muscle pain and weakness, joint pain and swelling, skin issues, abdominal pain and digestive issues, and recurring fevers. Some autoimmune diseases have dominant neurological manifestations, producing neuropathy, weakness, severe headaches, and cognitive impairment (“brain fog”).

These and many other signs and symptoms of autoimmune disease can be difficult to objectively measure and document, especially early on. These symptoms are often misattributed to stress and changing hormones. They’re also frequently psychologized as anxiety and depression.

But, chronic inflammation, a hallmark of autoimmune disease, has been shown to increase one’s susceptibility to depression. So depression can be a symptom of chronic inflammation. And it’s natural to feel anxious while experiencing symptoms to which there don’t appear to be any answers or solutions and for which nobody seems able to provide support.

Autoimmune Disease With Rash

Celiac disease, Crohn’s disease, dermatitis herpetiformis, dermatomyositis, lupus, psoriasis, systemic sclerosis, Sjogren’s disease, ulcerative colitis, and vasculitis are all autoimmune diseases that present with skin symptoms.

Dry skin around the eyes, eyelids, and mouth, itchy skin, sensitive skin, painful skin, bruises and various kinds of rashes can all be symptoms of autoimmune disease. Chemical sensitivity and sun sensitivity may be indicative of Sjogren’s disease or lupus.  

Will Autoimmune Disease Kill You?

Probably not directly or immediately, but, if left unmanaged and untreated, autoimmune disease can shorten your life and greatly decrease the quality of your shortened life. 

Women’s Health Specialists, Women’s Health Services, & The Beauty Industry

Women’s health is less researched than men’s because women are considered more complicated to study than men. Because research informs how doctors recognize, manage, and treat disease, women receive poorer health care than men do. 

Women, more than men, are socialized to care for others before caring for themselves. The messaging can be subtle, such as science and medicine prioritizing men’s health over women’s, or it can be blatant, such as the beauty industry’s fear-based messaging that you’re only socially acceptable if you adhere to certain beauty “ideals”.  

For women, this socialization starts when we’re young and only ends when we choose to stop it, typically after we’ve gotten really sick. At what age were you told by a loved one (often your mother or some other well-intentioned female relative) that you were too fat, too thin, too short, too tall, too curvy, not curvy enough, too dark, too light, too freckled, or too unacceptable as you were?

When you look in the mirror, what do you notice first? Is it linked to needing to use a cosmetic? Do you notice dark circles under your eyes and reach for eye cream instead of thinking about how you can change your habits to get more sleep?  

Because women are socialized to fear aging and treat their skin like a blank, impervious canvas instead of the largest organ in their body, when their skin changes to reflect the onset and progression of autoimmune disease, they turn to the beauty industry for help. I definitely did, and I learned an awful lot, and by that I mean a lot that’s awful.  

The beauty industry will not solve your problems. It makes money by managing your symptoms, probably worsening them and, in some cases, actually being their cause.

When I chose to set up a business providing lasting solutions to skin care problems, I encountered many small business mentors who told me that the only way to successfully run my business was to dilute my products, use cheaper packaging, and focus on profit over people. Their advice opened my eyes to how the beauty industry makes money.

Nonetheless, I don’t dilute my products or compromise on anything, packaging included, and, most importantly, I value people over profit. Despite my ignoring their well-meaning advice, or, I hope, because of that, last month I celebrated 9 years in business.

Autoimmune Disease Management & Healing

Healing happens when you confer physical, emotional, spiritual, and psychological safety to your body. While your genetics may increase your risk of developing autoimmune disease, your environment plays an important role, too. How you handle stress, how you manage your emotions, and to what you expose yourself (microbes, food, cosmetics, media, people) influences your chances of developing and progressing autoimmune disease. 

As a scientist dedicated to imparting life and vigor back to you using whole foods applied to your skin, I work with many women with autoimmune disease who have been socialized to ignore and override their bodies in the service of others. I use skin care to help them confer safety to themselves to facilitate healing. 

If you’re a woman or you would like to support women and those living with autoimmune disease, please check out, share, and shop the Hidden Illness and Disability Directory of Entrepreneurs and Nurturers (HIDDEN). You can find HIDDEN by visiting my website, bexiphd.com and clicking on the “HIDDEN” button in the menu at the top.

— Bexi (Rebecca) Lobo, Ph.D., is a nutritional biologist and biochemist.