I’m married to a doctor. We both complain about the medical system. It’s terrible. One of my biggest complaints is doctors seem to have no clue how to get symptoms out of patients in a way that translates to diagnosis.
I’ve had longstanding GI issues. I have no idea how to describe my symptoms. They sure seem like a lot of things, so I bring that list to my doc and I’m met with “eh, sounds weird”.
By contrast, I solved my issues via a few sessions with Claude. I was able to rattle off a whole list of symptoms, details about how it’s progressed, diets I’ve tried, recent incidents, supplements/meds I’ve taken. It comes up with hypothesis, research references, and forum discussions (forums are so useful for understanding - even if they can be dangerously wrong). We dive into the science of those leading causes to understand the biochemistry involved. That leads to a really deep understanding of what we can test.
Turns out there’s a very clear correlation with histamine levels and the issues I deal with. I realize a bunched stuff that I thought was healthy (and is for most people) is probably destroying my health. I cut those out and my GI issues have literally disappeared. Massively, massive life improvement with a relatively simple intervention (primarily just avoiding chicken and eggs).
I tell my doctor this and it’s just a blank stare “interesting”.
I seem to struggle with high histamine and histamine-liberating foods. This was challenging because histamines can build up quickly in certain foods that are labelled low-histamine or some foods can "liberate" histamines (even if they're low in histamines themselves). For example, chicken is technically low histamine but quickly builds up histamines and can cause histamine liberation. A "safe" meal like a chicken and rice bowl would destroy me.
Quantity and environment also played a huge role. If my histamine levels were low, I could often tolerate many of my trigger foods. However, if they were high (like during allergy season), the same foods would trigger me.
It took a very, very long time to narrow in on the underlying issue.
I’ve had longstanding GI issues. I have no idea how to describe my symptoms. They sure seem like a lot of things, so I bring that list to my doc and I’m met with “eh, sounds weird”.
By contrast, I solved my issues via a few sessions with Claude. I was able to rattle off a whole list of symptoms, details about how it’s progressed, diets I’ve tried, recent incidents, supplements/meds I’ve taken. It comes up with hypothesis, research references, and forum discussions (forums are so useful for understanding - even if they can be dangerously wrong). We dive into the science of those leading causes to understand the biochemistry involved. That leads to a really deep understanding of what we can test.
Turns out there’s a very clear correlation with histamine levels and the issues I deal with. I realize a bunched stuff that I thought was healthy (and is for most people) is probably destroying my health. I cut those out and my GI issues have literally disappeared. Massively, massive life improvement with a relatively simple intervention (primarily just avoiding chicken and eggs).
I tell my doctor this and it’s just a blank stare “interesting”.