One of the fascinating (and concerning) phenomena in immunology is called polyreactivity. This is when the immune system revs up and produces a surge of antibodies, not just against the pathogen you’re fighting, but against many others lurking in your system.
Here’s what happens:
✅ Past infections resurface — Viruses like Epstein-Barr, Lyme, or pneumonia can see antibody spikes after COVID.
✅ Collateral damage — These antibodies don’t just target pathogens; they can affect your own tissues, fueling inflammation and symptoms.
✅ Lab panels light up — In some cases, 20+ pathogens will test “off the charts,” signaling polyreactivity.
✅ Cancer connection — Similar immune overdrive patterns can even show up in oncology cases.
The immune system is powerful but when over-activated, it can become chaotic. COVID (SARS-CoV-2) is a prime trigger for this cascade, which helps explain why so many patients experience long-term or confusing post-viral symptoms.
Remember, supporting immune regulation, not just “boosting immunity,” is critical in navigating recovery and protecting long-term health.
#FunctionalMedicine #ImmuneHealth #PostViral #CellularHealth
had done a lot of blood work also and you know that that virus that co virus is gnarly. It woke up all these antibodies. So maybe you can explain to everybody why I’ve said that getting COVID increases the antibodies in Epstein bar lime pneumonia etc. Yeah there’s this phenomenon with with pathogens. It’s called poly reactivity. You start to make antibodies at a much higher rate for some of the viruses. Like if you check the population for Epstein bar, I mean I’m not sure what the numbers is, but it’s like 98% of people have will have some Epstein bar antibodies from past exposures from past infections. But a lot of times when you when you trigger you trigger you get a pathogen in they can cause this poly reactivity reaction. You get multiple antibodies elevated those antibodies will have an effect on tissue. they’ll have, you know, they’ll have some adverse effects on tissue and sometimes just like when we do a panel like we’ll do like a pathogen panel with like 24 different pathogens, all of them will be off the charts. That’s called poly reactivity. So this poly reactivity can be triggered by certain infections and this poly reactivity can also be triggered by cancers. So like if if we do like I’ll run a panel where it checks 24 pathogens at once and if I see everything off the chart I know that poly reactivity and like we have to go is there cancer in this patient. Wow. or is there like this active infection that’s there? So that’s a phenomenon immunology is very interesting where the whole immune system just revs up when it’s under attack by especially by civic pathogens. Sus kit 2 can definitely cause poly reactivity.
