When inflammation runs quietly - and your body feels the effects
Chronic inflammation and autoimmune patterns can surface as fatigue, joint pain, digestive issues, or unexplained symptoms. Understanding the pattern matters more than chasing a single label.
Inflammation is your immune system's normal response - but when it stays switched on, it can quietly affect your heart, metabolism, joints, and energy. Autoimmune conditions occur when that response turns against your own tissues.
Through her functional medicine practice, Dr. Hwaida Hannoush evaluates appropriate autoimmune and inflammatory concerns in context - looking for patterns rather than assuming one cause or one treatment. Because inflammation is central to cardiovascular disease, these concerns are often considered alongside your heart and metabolic health. Specific conditions, tests, and services are confirmed with you before anything is ordered.
A functional medicine evaluation, grounded in metabolic cardiology
Each concern is evaluated on its own terms - and, where relevant, considered alongside your cardiovascular and metabolic health. No single protocol fits everyone.
Look for the pattern
We use targeted inflammatory and immune markers, alongside your history, to understand whether inflammation is active and where it may be coming from - not to run every test available.
Consider the connections
Inflammation links autoimmune activity to cardiovascular and metabolic risk. Where relevant, we look at those relationships together so your plan reflects the whole picture.
Support, not suppress blindly
Your plan may involve nutrition, lifestyle, and supportive strategies - always coordinated with any care you already receive. We never recommend stopping prescribed treatment without your clinician.
Whom this serves
These concerns often bring people to a functional medicine evaluation. You don't need a formal diagnosis to start asking questions.
- Persistent fatigue, joint aches, or digestive symptoms without a clear cause
- A family or personal history of autoimmune conditions
- Elevated inflammatory markers on prior labs
- Symptoms that flare and remit without an obvious pattern
- A desire to understand inflammation's role in your overall risk
What to expect
A clear, individualized process - never a one-size-fits-all protocol.
- 1A detailed review of your history, symptoms, and prior labs
- 2Targeted inflammatory and immune markers only when they inform your plan
- 3Interpretation that connects inflammation to your heart and metabolic health
- 4A personalized plan with follow-up and adjustments over time
Why these concerns may be considered together
Cardiovascular, metabolic, thyroid, inflammatory, and brain health can influence one another - but they don't share a single cause or a single treatment. We look at the connections that are relevant to you.
High Cholesterol & Heart Risk
Inflammation helps determine whether cholesterol actively harms your arteries - which is why inflammatory and cardiovascular risk are often evaluated together.
Hormonal & Thyroid Health
Hashimoto's and other autoimmune thyroid conditions are part of the inflammatory picture for many people.
Brain Health
Neuroinflammation is an active area of research linking inflammatory health to cognition and mood.
Frequently asked
Curious whether an evaluation of autoimmune & inflammatory health is right for you?
Request an appointment and select "Autoimmune or inflammatory concerns" as your reason. We'll help you decide the right next step - no pressure, no unnecessary testing.