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- Diseases & Ayurveda
- Autoimmune Disease
10 conditions we keep a page for
Ayurvedic treatment alongside an autoimmune diagnosis
Autoimmune is one word covering something like a hundred different diseases, and the ten pages filed here are not mild variations on a theme. Vitiligo costs you pigment and, apart from the distress, nothing else. Lupus can take a kidney. Scleroderma can scar a lung. Ulcerative colitis can empty a colon. What they genuinely share is a mechanism: the immune system has lost tolerance to something that is your own. That single fact decides the whole treatment conversation, because the problem is not a weak immune system. It is a misdirected and over-active one. So nothing on this page will 'boost' your immunity - that is the wrong direction, and several of the preparations marketed as immunity tonics are precisely what the rheumatologist prescribing your medicines would rather you did not take. What a plan here does instead is the layer a fifteen-minute specialist appointment never has time for: sun and skin discipline, sleep and pacing, the diet that works around a steroid course or a colitis flare, comfort between flares, and the reporting literacy that makes you telephone your doctor on the right day instead of the wrong one.
Worsening symptoms in an autoimmune disease are not a flare to be waited out. Passing much less urine than usual with ankle swelling and a blood pressure spike; a sudden severe headache with blurred vision; breathlessness at rest or a new persistent dry cough; difficulty swallowing or raising your arms above your head; chest pain or fainting; blood in loose motions six or more times a day with fever; a single mouth ulcer that has not healed in three weeks in someone who smokes or drinks alcohol; a neck swelling that has grown over weeks with hoarseness, difficulty swallowing or a noisy breath; palpitations with weight loss, tremor and fever; a temperature over 38 C on steroids, a biologic or after chemotherapy; a hot swollen joint with fever; or a new painful red eye with blurred vision. Any one of those belongs in an emergency department today, not in a consultation slot. Tell us afterwards and the plan gets rebuilt around what happened.
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What we keep a page for under autoimmune disease
Each of these has its own page — symptoms, the Ayurvedic reading of the condition, what treatment looks like and the questions patients ask before they book.
Vitiligo
Melanocytes - the cells that make pigment - are destroyed in patches, leaving sharply outlined white areas, most visible on the face, hands, wrists and around body openings. It is not contagious, not an infection and not a fungus, and it is associated with thyroid disease, so a TSH belongs in every new case. The honest hierarchy of treatment: sun protection and camouflage, then topical steroids or tacrolimus for early and facial patches, then narrowband ultraviolet B, which is the intervention with the best evidence behind it, then surgical grafting for segmental disease that has been stable for a year. No tablet or powder repigments skin on its own. The page for this condition properly lives under skin disorders, and the link below redirects there.
Read this pageMouth Ulcers
The commonest reason anyone reaches for the word autoimmune here, and usually wrongly. Recurrent aphthous ulcers - small, round, yellow-based, painfully tender on the inner lip, under the tongue and on the soft palate - are not autoimmune in most people. Iron, vitamin B12, folate and zinc deficiency, a new toothpaste containing sodium lauryl sulphate, a sharp tooth edge, denture rub, coeliac disease, Crohn's, ulcerative colitis, lupus, Behcet's disease, herpes, and the blistering skin diseases can all do it, and stress and poor sleep make any of them more frequent. What separates a nuisance from a diagnosis is the pattern: how many, how long each lasts, whether they scar, and whether the eyes, genitals, skin, joints or bowels are involved too.
Read this pageEosinophilia
An eosinophil count above the reference range on a differential. In India the commonest cause by a wide margin is a worm infection, followed by asthma, eczema, hay fever and drug reactions - none of which are autoimmune. That matters because a dose of albendazole is a genuine cure for the majority of these people, and a course of herbal immunity tonics is not. The autoimmune and serious end of the list is real but narrower: allergic bronchopulmonary aspergillosis, EGPA and other vasculitides, adrenal insufficiency, hypereosinophilic syndrome and a handful of blood disorders. A persistently high count with breathlessness, chest pain, numbness, weight loss or a skin rash needs a physician's workup, not a wait.
Read this pageLupus
The disease this whole field is named after: an over-active immune system forming antibodies against its own cell nuclei, and then depositing the complexes wherever blood flow is high - skin, joints, kidneys, blood counts, nerves, heart and lungs. Fatigue that is not fixed by sleep, joint pain with morning stiffness, a rash across the cheeks and nose that follows sun exposure, mouth ulcers, hair thinning, recurrent infections, swelling round the eyes or ankles and foamy urine are the usual early sentences. Hydroxychloroquine is the foundation of treatment and stopping it is how flares start. Kidney involvement is the part that decides prognosis and is managed by biopsy and immunosuppression.
Read this pageScleroderma
A hardening. The immune signal drives fibroblasts to lay down collagen, so the skin thickens and tightens - fingers first, then face and sometimes trunk - and the same process can affect the oesophagus, lungs, heart and kidneys. Raynaud's is usually the first symptom years before anything visible: fingers whiting then bluing then reddening in cold water or air conditioning. Reflux, a tight jaw, tendon friction rubs, finger-tip ulcers that will not heal, and a new dry cough with breathlessness on exertion are the things that get missed. Skin fibrosis is not reversed by anything available today; the treatments that work target the lung and the vessels, and the kidney crisis is an emergency measured in hours.
Read this pageDermatomyositis
Muscle inflammation with a skin signature: a violet-red lid swelling, knuckle papules over the joints, and a rash on the back of the shoulders and neck. The weakness is proximal and symmetric - difficulty standing from a low chair, climbing stairs, lifting arms to wash hair - and it is not the ache of overuse. Swallowing difficulty, a nasal quality to the voice, and breathlessness are the dangerous three, because aspiration pneumonia and respiratory muscle failure are how this disease kills. In an adult over forty a new diagnosis carries a real association with an underlying, sometimes silent, cancer, so age-appropriate screening is part of the diagnosis rather than an extra. Steroids and immunosuppression are the treatment.
Read this pageSarcoidosis
Tiny clumps of immune cells called granulomas forming where they should not - in over ninety per cent of cases in the lungs and the lymph nodes of the chest, and also in the eyes, skin, nerves, heart, salivary glands, liver and kidneys. Persistent dry cough, breathlessness, weight loss, night sweats, a tender red lump on the shin, a painless red eye, a facial nerve palsy, raised calcium. The reassuring fact most people are not told: a large share of cases settle on their own within one to two years, and treatment is only needed when an organ is threatened. The dangerous minority is cardiac sarcoidosis, which presents as palpitations, fainting or heart block, and eye disease, which needs a slit-lamp examination rather than an opinion.
Read this pageUlcerative Colitis
Inflammation confined to the lining of the large bowel, starting at the rectum and extending upwards in a continuous stretch. Its signature is blood: loose motions streaked or mixed with blood and mucus, urgency that cannot be deferred, pain low on the left, and getting up at night to pass stool. That last one is important - irritable bowel syndrome does not wake people from sleep and does not bleed. Diagnosis is colonoscopy with biopsies, not a symptom score, and infections including amoebiasis, C. difficile and intestinal tuberculosis have to be excluded before immunosuppression, because steroids given to intestinal tuberculosis make it far worse. Mesalazine is the foundation; a severe attack is an admission.
Read this pageGoitre
A visible or palpable enlargement of the thyroid gland in front of the neck. Most goitres in India are not autoimmune at all - they come from iodine deficiency, from multinodular change with age, or from Hashimoto's thyroiditis. The page exists because people search for it, and because a neck swelling has a correct pathway: TSH and free T4, an ultrasound describing size, nodules and vascularity, a needle biopsy of anything suspicious, and then either observation, thyroid hormone, radioiodine or an operation. Aksa does not treat thyroid disorders and no herbal preparation here shrinks a gland. A swelling that grows quickly, feels fixed, hoarsens the voice, or makes breathing or swallowing noisy needs an ENT or endocrine surgeon this week.
Read this pageGraves' Disease
The commonest cause of an overactive thyroid: antibodies against the TSH receptor that keep the gland switched on regardless of what the body needs. Weight loss with a good appetite, heat intolerance and sweating, a racing or irregular pulse, tremor, anxiety, loose stools, thinning hair, sleeplessness, and in some people eye disease - grittiness, double vision, bulging. Left untreated it causes atrial fibrillation, heart failure and bone loss, and occasionally thyroid storm, which is a lethal emergency. Carbimazole, radioiodine or surgery are the treatments, and none of them is replaced here. Two safety points every patient should know cold: fever with a sore throat on carbimazole means stop and get a blood count the same day, and smoking makes the eye disease worse.
Read this page
Not sure which page is yours? Browse all 160 conditions or send the report to a physician.
How an autoimmune plan is built at Aksa
The first job here is a sorting job, and it happens twice. First: is this actually autoimmune? A high eosinophil count in a Delhi office worker is usually a worm, a mouth ulcer is usually iron or a sharp tooth, a neck swelling is usually iodine, and half of what arrives labelled autoimmune has a completely different explanation waiting in a blood test. Second: if it is autoimmune, what has the specialist already established, and what is the medicine list? A plan built without knowing your hydroxychloroquine dose, your steroid course and your last creatinine is not a plan. Where the diagnosis is settled, our work sits beside the treatment that is holding the disease down - never in place of it, and never as a reason to shorten a prescription.
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You share your details
Name, number, the diagnosis you were given or suspect, who gave it, how long you have had it, which organs have been involved, every medicine and dose you are taking now, and the reports you already hold. A care coordinator calls back, tells you exactly what to bring and what to stop doing before the visit - and if the picture you describe sounds like an emergency, that call ends with a direction to a department rather than a slot.
- 02
The appointment is confirmed
At the Model Town or Burari clinic with a B.A.M.S physician, or on a video consultation where the question is a report you do not understand, a symptom that has changed, or a plan you want reviewed between rheumatology visits. Some things genuinely need an in-person visit: a new neck swelling, a non-healing mouth ulcer, finger-tip ulcers, new breathlessness, a rash being started on immunosuppression, or any decision about tapering a medicine.
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The history, then what the records show
Which symptom came first and in what order, since when, what has been tested and what it said, sun exposure and occupation, cold exposure and Raynaud's, swallowing and chewing, bowel frequency and blood, night symptoms, weight, hair, eyes, joints and morning stiffness, pregnancies, infections, vaccinations, every medicine including painkillers and herbal powders, and the family history. Then the documents themselves, read as a series rather than a snapshot: antibodies and titres, complement levels, counts, protein in urine, lung function, imaging, biopsy and colonoscopy reports with dates.
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A plan that fits around the specialist's
Written in two columns: what belongs to rheumatology, gastroenterology, nephrology, endocrinology or dermatology and does not move, and what we can actually add - sun and skin protection, sleep and pacing, the diet around steroids and around a flare, comfort measures, nutritional repletion where a deficiency is measured, and the symptom layer between flares. Anything we prescribe is listed with its full composition so your specialist can see it, and nothing is started that we would not show them.
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Reviews on the disease's own measures
Not on how you feel in the waiting room. Complement C3 and C4 and anti-dsDNA titre and urine protein in lupus, faecal calprotectin and symptom score and, on schedule, colonoscopy in colitis, absolute eosinophil count, lung function with DLCO and imaging in sarcoidosis and scleroderma, muscle enzymes and swallow and vital capacity in myositis, TSH and free T4 in thyroid disease, bone density and vitamin D and sugar on any steroid course. If the direction of travel changes, the specialist is told the same week.
What the physician reads
- The exact diagnosis, who made it, and whether it was ever confirmed by a test or only by a symptom list - a great many people carry the word autoimmune without a single antibody result behind it
- The full medicine list with doses and dates: hydroxychloroquine and whether retinal screening has ever been done, prednisolone and the cumulative dose and taper history, methotrexate, azathioprine, mycophenolate, ciclosporin, tacrolimus, biologics and JAK inhibitors, mesalazine, levothyroxine, carbimazole, beta-blockers, calcium and vitamin D, bone protection, and every painkiller
- Which organs have already been involved - kidney, lung, heart, nerve, eye, gut, blood counts - because that, not the antibody panel, is what decides how careful the next five years need to be
- Antibody results as named values: ANA titre and pattern, anti-dsDNA, extractable nuclear antigens including anti-Smith, anti-Ro and anti-La, antiphospholipid antibodies and lupus anticoagulant, complement C3 and C4, Scl-70 and centromere, myositis-specific antibodies, ANCA, TSH receptor antibodies and anti-TPO
- Counts and chemistry read as a trend across months rather than a single printout: haemoglobin, white cells, platelets, absolute eosinophil count, creatinine and eGFR, potassium, liver enzymes, muscle enzymes, uric acid, calcium and phosphate, CRP and ESR - and the discordance between them
- Urine: protein-to-creatinine ratio or albumin-to-creatinine ratio, red cell casts, and whether a lupus patient has ever had a urine dipstick at all, because nephritis is silent until it is not
- Breathing and swallowing: a dry cough, breathlessness on flat ground or on exertion, voice change, coughing on fluids, how many seconds you can hold a count out loud, and whether the arms lift against gravity
- Bowel history in detail: number of motions in twenty-four hours, blood mixed or streaked, urgency, night-time rising, weight, and whether infection - amoeba, C. difficile, tuberculosis - was ever excluded before immunosuppression started
- Cold exposure and colour change in the fingers, jaw opening in millimetres, skin thickness over the fingers and face, tendon friction rubs, finger-tip ulcers and whether they heal
- Sun: occupation, travel, hours outdoors, whether a rash followed a holiday, and what sunscreen is actually applied and how often - the single most modifiable trigger in lupus and one of the few things we can change
- Eyes: any pain, redness, light sensitivity or blurred vision, uveitis history, and whether an ophthalmologist has ever looked with a slit lamp - and for Graves' disease, grittiness, double vision and bulging
- Infection history and protection: recurrent chest or skin infection, tuberculosis contact and prior treatment, hepatitis B and C and HIV status, vaccination record including influenza, pneumococcal and HPV, and whether live vaccines were given before or after immunosuppression
- Cancer screening status by age and sex, and specifically whether a new dermatomyositis diagnosis in an adult over forty prompted any screening at all
- Reproductive plans: because several of these medicines are unsafe in pregnancy, lupus and colitis both change in pregnancy, anti-Ro antibodies affect the baby's heart rhythm, and a pregnancy planned with a specialist is a different outcome from one discovered
- What the patient has already been told and what they stopped believing: the steroid fear that makes people hide doses, the 'this will cure it' promise from somewhere else, and the herbal products currently being taken that no specialist has ever seen written down
Your reports, in plain language
Autoimmune reports are misread in one direction far more than the other: a positive antinuclear antibody treated as a diagnosis when it is present in a meaningful share of perfectly healthy people, and a normal CRP treated as reassurance when the disease in front of you does not raise CRP. Bring every printed report with its date and reference range, in order. The sequence is the information - a single value tells us almost nothing about a disease that moves in flares.
- Antinuclear antibody, with reflex to extractable nuclear antigens
- A screening test that is positive in most lupus but also in a good number of healthy people, in thyroid disease, in rheumatoid arthritis, in liver disease and after some infections. The titre and pattern matter, and so does what comes next: anti-Smith is specific for lupus, anti-centromere and Scl-70 point at scleroderma, anti-Ro and anti-La at Sjogren's and at a baby's cardiac risk. A lone positive ANA with no symptoms is not a disease and should not be treated as one.
- Anti-dsDNA and complement C3 and C4
- The pair that tracks lupus activity, especially kidney lupus: a rising anti-dsDNA with falling complement usually means the disease is moving, and it often moves weeks before you feel it. Together with a urine protein they are the reason a lupus patient is followed on bloods rather than on how the day felt.
- Full blood count with differential and absolute eosinophil count
- Lupus lowers platelets, white cells and red cells; steroids raise the white count and can mask infection; eosinophils above the range need a cause named - worms, drugs, asthma, eczema, vasculitis, a blood disorder. The absolute number, not the percentage, is what matters, and a repeat count a few weeks apart tells you whether it is a finding or a trend.
- ESR and CRP, and why they disagree
- A classic teaching point: active lupus typically gives a high ESR with a normal or barely raised CRP, and if the CRP is high in lupus the first thought should be infection rather than flare. Inflammatory bowel disease, vasculitis and sarcoidosis behave differently again. Reading these two together is more useful than either alone.
- Urine routine, protein-to-creatinine ratio and kidney function
- The early-warning system for lupus nephritis and for scleroderma kidney crisis: protein, microscopic blood and casts appear long before creatinine moves. Any patient on long-term hydroxychloroquine or steroids, and every lupus patient, should have this at least yearly and more often when the disease is active.
- Thyroid bloods - TSH, free T4, free T3, anti-TPO and TSH receptor antibodies
- TSH is the first and best test for both ends of thyroid function. Anti-TPO marks Hashimoto's, the autoimmune cause of an underactive gland and of many goitres; TSH receptor antibodies confirm Graves' disease. Because vitiligo, alopecia and lupus all cluster with thyroid disease, a TSH is part of the workup of several pages on this hub rather than a separate enquiry.
- Muscle enzymes - creatine kinase, aldolase, LDH and transaminases
- Raised in inflammatory myositis and in some drug-related muscle injury, and used to follow a treatment response. Note that a normal CK does not exclude dermatomyositis, and that the transaminases raised here are muscle in origin, not liver - a common and expensive misreading.
- Faecal calprotectin, stool studies and colonoscopy with biopsies
- Calprotectin separates inflammatory bowel disease from irritable bowel syndrome reasonably well and is used to follow colitis without repeating a scope. Stool culture, amoeba and C. difficile toxin and tuberculosis testing come before immunosuppression, not after. Colonoscopy with biopsies is what establishes ulcerative colitis - the pattern of continuous inflammation from the rectum upwards and the changes in the tissue - and dysplasia surveillance begins roughly eight to ten years after diagnosis.
- Chest imaging, lung function with DLCO and, where indicated, HRCT
- The mainstays for sarcoidosis and scleroderma lung disease. Lung function measures how much air moves and how much gas gets across, and a falling DLCO is often the earliest sign of fibrosis or of pulmonary hypertension - years before a breathless symptom. A baseline matters more than any single reading, because the trend is what triggers treatment.
- Echocardiogram, ECG and troponin or BNP
- Estimated pulmonary artery pressure on an echo is the screening test for the pulmonary hypertension of scleroderma, which is the reason an echo is scheduled yearly rather than symptom-by-symptom. In sarcoidosis, an ECG and sometimes longer monitoring look for conduction block, and unexplained palpitations or fainting in this disease are taken seriously because the granulomas can sit in the heart's wiring.
- Skin biopsy, direct immunofluorescence and blistering antibodies
- For an unclear rash: lupus band testing, the interface changes of vitiligo, the collagen thickening of scleroderma, and - critically - the immunofluorescence pattern that separates pemphigus and other blistering diseases from an ordinary eczema. Those blistering diseases are autoimmune, potentially dangerous, and are treated by a dermatologist with systemic therapy, not here.
- Ophthalmic slit-lamp examination and retinal screening
- Two separate reasons. Uveitis and the eye disease of sarcoidosis, Behcet's and Graves' need a slit lamp and are sight-threatening and often painless at first. Hydroxychloroquine needs a baseline and then annual retinal screening from around the fifth year of treatment, because toxicity is silent until vision is already lost - and it is dose-dependent, which is why the dose is worth knowing.
- Bone density, vitamin D, calcium and phosphate, and blood sugar
- The cost accounting of steroids: bone loss, muscle weakness, sugar rising, weight redistributing, cataract, and suppressed immunity. Vitamin D and calcium are usually prescribed alongside a steroid course, and in sarcoidosis the opposite caution applies - the granulomas activate vitamin D themselves, so extra supplements and sunlight can push calcium dangerously high.
- Infection screening before and during immunosuppression
- Tuberculosis testing and chest imaging, hepatitis B and C, HIV, and in this region a stool examination for parasites before deworming decisions. Latent tuberculosis reactivates on steroids and biologics, hepatitis B reactivates too, and both are preventable with a test done in the right order. This is the single most useful set of reports on this page, and it is frequently skipped.
None of this is ordered as a package, and most of it is already being done by your specialist - bring it rather than repeating it. A test is asked for here only when the answer would change what we do, and we will tell you which of your reports are still valid instead of charging you twice. Government and municipal facilities in Delhi supply blood counts, thyroid assays, chest imaging and colonoscopy at low or no cost, and a rheumatology, gastroenterology or endocrinology outpatient department will see an unconfirmed diagnosis without a referral from us.
What Ayurveda can do here — and what it cannot
The two things that cause most of the harm in this field are both avoidable with plain information: an immunosuppressant stopped because somebody promised a cure, and a serious diagnosis waited out on a course of immunity tonics while an organ was being lost. What follows is what a plan at Aksa changes and what it does not, written so that you can judge any clinic against it - including ours.
What a plan here is for
- Sun and skin protection in lupus and in the rashes around it - the practical version for a Delhi working day: what factor, how much, how often re-applied, the sleeves and cap that actually get worn, and the window timings that are worth changing. This is one of the few triggers in autoimmune disease with real evidence behind it, and almost nobody is given a workable instruction
- Comfort and function in vitiligo: camouflage that survives humidity, sun protection on depigmented skin that burns rather than tans, the psychological load taken seriously, and the check for thyroid and other associated disease that a new diagnosis should always trigger
- The symptom layer specialists do not have time for: fatigue that is not laziness, sleep fragmented by pain or by night-time bowel urgency, itch, oral discomfort, the low mood that follows a lifelong diagnosis at thirty, and pacing a working day around energy that has a ceiling
- Diet around the medicines rather than around a label: salt, sugar and calcium and vitamin D on a steroid course; iron, B12, folate and zinc where a deficiency is measured rather than assumed; low-residue and hydration during a colitis flare and a normal varied diet outside it; lactose and caffeine; and the honest fact that no diet induces remission in any disease on this page
- Recurrent mouth ulcers once the dangerous causes are excluded: trigger identification, toothpaste and dental trauma, nutritional repletion where a level is genuinely low, topical measures for comfort, and the follow-up that catches the ulcer that does not heal
- Raynaud's, skin care and hand function in scleroderma: keeping the whole body warm rather than only the hands, stopping smoking, gentle stretching and jaw-opening work, moisturising and finger-tip ulcer care, reflux measures for the oesophagus, and elevation and compression for swollen fingers
- Bowel symptom support in ulcerative colitis that is in remission on mesalazine: the irritable-bowel overlay that persists after inflammation is controlled, urgency and gas, diet and travel, and the flare warning signs written down so the specialist is called early
- Adherence literacy, which is where the real benefit lies: what each medicine is for, why hydroxychloroquine takes months, why a steroid taper is not negotiable, which side effects to report and which to expect, and how to keep a record your rheumatologist can read in three minutes
- Infection avoidance and vaccination planning for anyone on immunosuppression - which vaccines are safe and when, why live vaccines are deferred, food and water precautions, deworming where indicated, and what to do on the first day of a fever
- Referral timing, written down: to rheumatology for lupus, scleroderma, myositis and vasculitis; to gastroenterology for colitis; to pulmonology or rheumatology for sarcoidosis; to endocrinology for anything thyroid; to dermatology for blistering disease; to haematology for a persistently high eosinophil count - with what to say when you arrive and which reports to carry
What it is not
- Nothing here replaces hydroxychloroquine, corticosteroids, methotrexate, azathioprine, mycophenolate, ciclosporin, tacrolimus, biologics or JAK inhibitors. These medicines are what prevent organ damage, and stopping them - not missing a herbal dose - is how kidneys are lost, lungs scar and colons are removed. If you want to reduce anything, that conversation belongs with the prescriber and is done one medicine at a time with the numbers visible.
- Lupus nephritis, inflammation of the brain or nerves, severe blood-count involvement and cardiopulmonary lupus are treated by a rheumatologist and nephrologist with biopsy, pulse steroids and cytotoxic therapy. Untreated nephritis progresses to dialysis. There is no Ayurvedic regimen with evidence for any of these, and a clinic that claims otherwise is describing a different disease.
- A scleroderma kidney crisis is an emergency measured in hours: sudden severe headache, a spike in blood pressure, blurred vision, reduced urine output, sometimes seizures. It needs an ACE inhibitor started immediately by a physician, and delay costs kidney function permanently. Scleroderma lung disease and pulmonary hypertension need mycophenolate, nintedanib or specialist vascular therapy; skin thickening itself is not reversed by anything currently available.
- A severe ulcerative colitis attack is an admission, not a consultation: blood in loose motions six to ten or more times a day, fever, racing pulse, anaemia, a raised CRP, a distended tender abdomen. Intravenous steroids, ciclosporin or infliximab, and sometimes surgery, decide the outcome - and toxic dilatation of the colon is fatal without it. Surgery for colitis is a real and sometimes the best answer, and it is not a failure.
- Dermatomyositis with difficulty swallowing, a nasal voice, or breathlessness needs urgent specialist care: aspiration pneumonia and respiratory muscle failure are how this disease kills, and treatment is immunosuppression from day one. So is the cancer search that a new adult diagnosis should trigger - an underlying tumour is not something a symptom plan will find.
- Thyroid disorders are not treated at Aksa. Goitre, Hashimoto's hypothyroidism, Graves' disease and thyroid nodules are managed with levothyroxine, antithyroid drugs, radioiodine or surgery by an endocrinologist, and a compressing or suspicious neck swelling by a surgeon. No herbal preparation shrinks a gland, normalises a TSH or reverses either thyroid disease, and the two pages kept here exist to say so plainly and to point at the correct pathway.
- Two safety points inside thyroid treatment that no patient should be without: a fever with a sore throat while taking carbimazole or methimazole can mean agranulocytosis - a lost immune defence - and needs a blood count the same day and the drug stopped; and thyroid storm - high fever, confusion, a very fast or irregular pulse - is an intensive care diagnosis, not a flare.
- A high eosinophil count is not treated here until its cause is named. In this region the commonest cause is a worm infection and the answer is a prescribed anthelmintic; drug reactions, asthma and eczema are treated by removing the drug and controlling the airway and the skin. A persistently high count with heart, nerve, lung or skin involvement is a haematology or rheumatology workup, and hypereosinophilic syndrome and EGPA need steroids and specialist therapy.
- Vitiligo is not repigmented by any oral medicine, powder or oil. The treatments with evidence are topical steroids and calcineurin inhibitors for early and facial patches, narrowband ultraviolet B and excimer light for widespread or stable disease, and grafting for segmental vitiligo that has not changed for a year. Psoralen-containing preparations traditionally used here are phototoxic: taken or applied and then walked into Delhi sun, they burn, and burns can make vitiligo spread. Depigmented skin needs protection, not treatment by sunlight.
- Sarcoidosis often settles by itself, and treatment is reserved for organ-threatening disease - so a plan that promises to clear granulomas within a fixed number of days is not describing this illness. Eye involvement needs a slit lamp and steroids; cardiac involvement needs a cardiologist; and vitamin D and calcium supplements in sarcoidosis can raise blood calcium to dangerous levels, which is one more reason nothing should be added without telling the specialist.
- The autoimmune blistering diseases - pemphigus, pemphigoid - and the vasculitides, myasthenia gravis, multiple sclerosis, type one diabetes, autoimmune hepatitis, inflammatory muscle disease in a child, and adult-onset Still's disease are not managed here. They are on this list because they are autoimmune and because people arrive asking: they belong to a specialist, and the honest answer is a referral rather than a course.
- No 'immunity-boosting' preparation is appropriate for an autoimmune disease, and the frame itself is wrong. The immune system here is not under-performing, so giloy, ashwagandha, high-dose herbal tonics and the products sold as immunity builders are aimed in the opposite direction; several have documented immune-stimulating activity in the laboratory, and none has been shown to induce remission in a human autoimmune disease. Anything you take must be listed to your specialist, because herbal products also carry their own risks: liver injury, kidney injury, potassium load, and in some traditional preparations lead, mercury or arsenic.
- The oil-pouring, medicated-massage and purifying procedures advertised across this field are not offered at Aksa, and no plan here promises a permanent cure, a guaranteed remission or a steroid-free life within a fixed number of days.
Autoimmune disease is managed over years, not courses, and the difference between a good decade and a bad one is almost always the same short list: the right medicines kept going, the sun and cold avoided, the screening tests done on schedule, infection caught on day one, and the specialist told about everything else you are taking. A plan here earns its place inside that list, not around it.
Who you actually sit with
B.A.M.S physicians at the two Delhi clinics. Consultation is with one of them, not with a counsellor.
Dr. Md Faizan SiddiquiB.A.M.S · 6 Years ExperienceGastrointestinalSkin
Dr. Raj AryanBAMS · 4+ Years ExperienceSkin & Dermatological ConcernsDigestive & Gastrointestinal Disorders
Dr. Rupender S. KaushikB.A.M.S · 4 Years ExperienceJoint Pain
Dr. Mohd SaqibB.A.M.S · 6 Years ExperienceDigestiveSkin
Dr. Uvais NaeemBAMS · 1 Year of Clinical ExperienceDigestive & GastrointestinalSkin & Hair
Where you can be seen
Two clinics in Delhi, or a video consultation from anywhere in India.
Burari, Delhi
2nd Floor, PVT. 449, KH. No. 137/5/11, Block B, Sant Nagar, Burari, Delhi – 110084
Open all days
Timings and directionsVideo consultation
Speak to the physician from home, with your reports on screen. Prescribed medicines are delivered across India.
How a video consultation runsFrequently asked questions
This is the most common question on this page and it contains the mistake that causes most of the harm. In an autoimmune disease your immune system is not weak - it is misdirected and over-active, attacking tissue that is your own. The entire treatment strategy in modern medicine is to quiet it down and make it more specific, not to rev it up. So an 'immunity booster' is aimed in exactly the wrong direction. Some of these preparations, giloy and ashwagandha among them, have documented immune-stimulating activity in laboratory studies; none has been shown in a human trial to induce remission in lupus, colitis, scleroderma or any other disease on this page, and several can interact with the medicines that are protecting your organs. What is worth doing instead is unglamorous and genuinely evidence-based: enough sleep, adequate protein and calories, vitamin D if a level is low, vaccinations on schedule, hand hygiene, no smoking, and treating an infection early. If someone has told you that your immunity needs building, ask them what your complement levels and your blood counts are.
Other treatment categories
The same structure on every category: real pages, written by the physicians who treat them.
Medical disclaimer: this page is educational and is not a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Systemic lupus erythematosus, scleroderma, dermatomyositis, sarcoidosis, ulcerative colitis, the autoimmune blistering diseases and vasculitides are managed by rheumatology, gastroenterology, pulmonology, nephrology and dermatology services, and corticosteroids, hydroxychloroquine, immunosuppressants and biologics are not replaced, reduced or stopped by Ayurvedic treatment. Thyroid disorders including goitre and Graves' disease are not treated at Aksa and belong to an endocrinologist or thyroid surgeon. Seek emergency care for fever on immunosuppression, fever with sore throat on antithyroid drugs, reduced urine output with a blood pressure spike and headache, breathlessness at rest, chest pain or fainting, difficulty swallowing, severe colitis with blood and fever, a new painful red eye, a hot swollen joint with fever, confusion or seizure, or a rapidly enlarging neck swelling with hoarseness or noisy breathing.
Bring the diagnosis, the medicines and the reports.
A consultation with a B.A.M.S physician who will ask which antibody, which organ and which dose before saying anything about a herb - a plain-language reading of your ANA, complement, counts, calprotectin, lung function or biopsy, an honest account of what a plan here can add to your specialist's treatment and what it must not touch, and a full written composition list for anything we give you to hand to your rheumatologist, gastroenterologist or endocrinologist.