Well, here we are… standing on the edge. These are the first steps to what I hope to become something we can all be proud of one day. I have gone (both mentally and physically) from a significantly small group of Weggies (those special folks sportin’ Wegener’s Granulomatosis, an autoimmune disease affecting the small blood vesels of the body) to one of the largest common group of sufferers from a disease out there – autoimmunity. From a group of one in 30 to 40,000 to a group of 1 in 5. So why isn’t the world standing up and doing something about it? Well, I guess that means it’s up to us. 1 in 5, that’s a lot of us.
First on the agenda, lets wake everyone up to our existence and our strength in numbers. We’ll start with ‘Find the Common Thread Pajama Day’. Ever wanted to wear your PJ’s at work? Well here’s your chance. Talk to your bosses, encourage them to support the movement. Guaranteed they know someone with an autoimmune disorder. Guaranteed. The list of individual diseases that falls under the AI umbrella is longer than your arm. Try having challenges between offices or like businesses to see who can have more PJ’s show up at work, host PJ parties, have PJ fashion shows.
This year we’ll do it on Rare Disease Day, February 29th 2012 because so many of the individual diseasses fall under ‘Rare Disease’ category, and when the world starts to see us for the mass that we really are we can move it to March 1st in the following years. We’ll wear our PJ’s because so many of us spend days ‘looking normal’ while our bodies are waging a war inside in the privacy of themselves/ourselves. Self against self. Not of our choosing.
Once awareness is out there we can start raising money that will go towards research to help find the common thread.
Only together can we pull this off.
Find The Common Thread Foundation 
I’ve had Crohn’s diesase and Celiac diesase for 15 years. My mother has MS, Crohn’s, and fibromyalgia. My grandmother had Ulcerative Colitis. All autoimmune disorders. We are living proof it runs in families. I fear for my daughter.Do I think antibiotics cause autoimmune disorders? Not necessarily. Do I believe you can be genetically predisposed to autoimmune disorders that are then triggered by an imbalance in your system from an environmental factor like antibiotics? Sure. Antibiotics mess with your immune system. They create an imbalance because they don’t kill bacteria selectively. They kill the good with the bad and if that happens too often and your body is already susceptible, then we have problems.But there are lots of things that create an imbalance. Start with the food supply. Too much sugar, fat, starch, artificial flavors, colors, preservatives. Throw in a few noxious chemical cleaners, air fresheners, perfumes, fabric softeners and laundry dye. Mix in lack of exercise, overproduction of cortisol due stress, and constantly being on alert and your body simply can no longer cope. It shuts down. Your immune system gets confused because it can no longer determine self from not self. It attacks everything and we get sick.I hope you can find answers you are searching for. If it were simple, we would already know, wouldn’t we? Good luck.