autoimmune conditions
When Your Body Is Working Against Itself, You Need Someone Working With You
Autoimmune conditions are among the most complex and misunderstood challenges in modern medicine. Whether you're living with a clear diagnosis or navigating symptoms that don't seem to fit a single label, the experience is often the same: cycling through specialists, managing medications that address symptoms but not causes, and feeling like no one is looking at the full picture.
At The Buddha's Medicine, we look at the full picture. That is the starting point, not the afterthought.
How We Approach autoimmune care
Ayurvedic medicine uses a fundamentally different framework for understanding autoimmune conditions than western medicine. Rather than viewing the immune system in isolation, Ayurveda considers the interplay between digestion, tissue integrity, mental and emotional health, lifestyle patterns, and constitutional patterns — because autoimmune conditions rarely have a single cause and, therefore, rarely respond to single interventions.
Dr. Matt Van Auken, MD, MPH combines this Ayurvedic perspective with his training in integrative and lifestyle medicine to provide care that is both medically rigorous and holistically informed. His approach typically includes:
A comprehensive, unhurried assessment. Autoimmune conditions are complex by nature, and they deserve a thorough intake process. Dr. Matt takes the time to understand your full health history, the timeline of your symptoms, your current medications and treatments, your lifestyle factors, and your constitutional makeup. Modern diagnostic tools like labs and imaging play an important role, too, but they tell just one part of a much larger story.
Addressing the terrain, not just the diagnosis. Conventional medicine treatments often focus on suppressing the immune response. Our approach starts with a different question: what conditions in the body brought this imbalance pattern about, and what can we do to change that terrain? This might involve addressing gut health and intestinal permeability, reducing systemic inflammation through targeted nutrition, supporting detoxification pathways, restoring balance to the nervous system, and rebuilding vitality where it's been depleted.
Treatment plans that honor your complexity. Every autoimmune presentation is unique. Your care plan may include individualized dietary guidance aligned with your Ayurvedic constitution, herbal medicine and custom formulations, lifestyle modifications addressing sleep, stress, movement, and daily routine, and coordination with other members of your care team (such as specialists) when appropriate. Dr. Matt doesn't ask you to abandon conventional care — he works alongside it to help you find a healthier baseline, and to fill in key gaps.
Support for the whole person. Autoimmune conditions affect far more than the body alone. The emotional toll of chronic illness — the grief, the frustration, the uncertainty — is real and deserves care of its own. Jamie Van Auken offers therapy that addresses the nervous system's role in chronic illness, helping patients develop resilience, process the emotional weight of their health journey, and rebuild a sense of safety in their own bodies.
CONDITIONS WE COMMONLY SUPPORT
Inflammatory bowel disease (Crohn's disease, ulcerative colitis, etc.)
Autoimmune thyroid conditions (Hashimoto's, Graves' disease, etc.)
Rheumatoid and inflammatory arthritis
Psoriasis and autoimmune skin conditions
Multiple sclerosis
Lupus and connective tissue disorders
Autoimmune liver conditions (autoimmune hepatitis, primary biliary cholangitis, etc.)
Complex, multi-system autoimmune presentations
Undiagnosed or misdiagnosed autoimmune symptoms
Early-stage evaluation
And more
"Western medicine has failed me time and time again, not because of bad doctors but rather, the system within which our healthcare system operates. Doctors are under ridiculous time constraints that don't allow them to really do their job. This is not the case with The Buddha's Medicine. You will be treated with the utmost respect, care, and kindness. The really amazing part though is Dr. Matt is a wonderful Ayurvedic practitioner in addition to being a brilliant Western medicine doctor. Because he is taking the time to really listen and know me, we are solving problems that I have dealt with for decades."
Autoimmune conditions are complex — but you don't have to navigate that complexity alone. If you're searching for a more thorough, root-cause approach to your care, we invite you to schedule a complimentary 15-minute consultation with Dr. Matt — available in-person in Portland, Oregon and via telehealth across multiple states.