When Doing Everything Right Isn't Enough: A Body That Wouldn't Add Up

For most of my adult life, I've been the person who does everything right when it comes to my health. I’ve felt I had no excuse not to, with the number of chronic health labels I’ve collected and the drive to do right by my own body. I work out daily. I’ve often been accused of eating like a rabbit. I track my activity levels. I am a devoted CGM wearer, and I put in the effort to reflect on what all these patterns might mean, tweaking my routines and insulin doses constantly. It’s just the job of taking care of me, and I’ve made my peace with that after almost 30 years of it.

And yet, I have still managed to pick up more medical labels. Perhaps this is just what it means to age with autoimmune conditions?

Five years ago, the pace picked up. A body “witching hour” began around 2 p.m., when eating or drinking would often cause my face to flush, all my internal membranes and sinus cavities to burn, and what felt like all my organs slowing down. This made no sense to any of my doctors, but we ran labs anyway to try to figure it out. We ruled out a neuroendocrine tumor. My dentist found erosion on my molars and suspected reflux, although I have never experienced heartburn. My eyes started to get inflamed, and I got another label when I showed up for my annual eye exam. Neuropathy was floated as one possible explanation for what I was feeling; stress was another. A positive antinuclear antibody (ANA) test raised the possibility of another autoimmune connection, including Sjögren’s syndrome, but follow-up testing didn't provide a clear answer. I started getting canker sores on my tongue every few months that made it not only hard to eat, but also to speak clearly.

Then things really picked up six months ago. Vertigo entered the picture, and I was even more miserable. With longstanding digestive issues, I have always accepted a certain amount of discomfort eating and marched on, but these episodes were getting worse and worse despite my increasing vigilance. I was doing everything right—or at least everything I knew to do—and somehow I was still getting sicker. After years of pushing through and trying the next thing, I hit a wall. I couldn't just keep doing more of the same and expect something to change. I needed another way to look at it all.

If only there were a specialist for all my specialists.

Twenty years of specialists and lab results still left everyone stumped. The results were inconclusive and the theories unsubstantiated.

I was eating what I considered a textbook healthy diet: lots of fruits and vegetables, whole grains, lean protein, nuts and fiber. I'd already eliminated gluten and most dairy. I exercised daily. I followed all the rules to try to keep my body healthy—and yet, my “textbook” healthy diet and lifestyle were making me sick.

A Safe Place to Challenge My Assumptions and Debug

Conveniently, I also wanted an excuse to play with Claude. This is kind of ironic coming from someone who still doesn't want an insulin pump because, despite all the advances, I have enough technological and pharmaceutical dependence in my life already, thank you very much.

But I was feeling like I had nowhere else to turn. What did I have to lose?

So I built a Claude Project and gave it my history, symptoms, food constraints, daily routines and meal schedules, and started chatting. We would chat through theories and develop a shared consensus about what could be happening. We’d try a theory; Claude would help me figure out what to buy and eat, log how I felt, tell me what it thought happened, and listen to what I thought could be happening.

Repeat.

It wasn't always elegant. I was disoriented for a month in my own body. All of my instincts about what to dose or eat were off-kilter. This is expected, of course, when you flip the table on it all. Claude hallucinated and lost context. I repeatedly had to tell it to stop trying to manage my diabetes and, at times, it even forgot I had diabetes.

The amount of data I gave it through all those chat logs was enormous. No modern healthcare practitioner could ever take on the number of questions and scenarios that come with managing a body with so many constraints, and I don’t fault any of my specialists for that. This was a multimodal data challenge just as much as it was a medical challenge—precisely the kind of thing these AI models are ideal for.

AI gave me a safe and smart space to debug my body. It connected the dots in a way the specialists—and not even me, my own best specialist—could. For the first time, I could explore the whole puzzle instead of one specialty at a time.

We tested all sorts of theories: food allergies, hormones, caffeine, workout intensity, fiber, fat, sleep, pollen levels, work demands, alcohol. Suddenly, things started clicking. We rebuilt my meals around lower-fat, lower-fiber foods my body could more easily tolerate, and I almost instantly started feeling better overall. The molar erosion my dentist had noticed made sense through the lens of silent reflux. Significant seasonal allergies emerged as another contributor to how lousy I'd been feeling, and some OTC medications started working magic.

Instead of asking whether I was doing everything right according to all the latest research and medical findings, I started asking: What actually nurtures my body?

The Results Were Shocking

Never in my wildest dreams did I expect relief and positive health outcomes so quickly. Within days, my digestive symptoms improved. I shifted my diet toward more carbs, yet became more insulin sensitive, and my basal insulin needs dropped 42%. I lost 10 pounds. My resting heart rate started trending down. My skin cleared up. We uncovered lingering seasonal allergies that had been setting me back for decades. Importantly for me, I rediscovered the joy of preparing a meal and learning new recipes. Hell, even my grocery bill went down.

And I feel better than I have in nearly 30 years. That's almost hard for me to comprehend because I thought I knew what it felt like to feel healthy and strong in this body. Turns out, there was yet another level to discover.

What Else Might Be Possible?

While I am still in a bit of shock at just how transformational and immediate these findings were for me, there is still some work to be done. There are lingering unknowns and referrals to follow through on. I need to build new playbooks for restaurants and travel so I can spend time with and enjoy meals with those I love. I definitely still have Type 1 diabetes and a slew of autoimmune conditions to manage that take a lot of discipline and diligence. Grit, you might say. ;-)

But I feel happier in my body than I ever have. It’s such a feeling of accomplishment to conquer a problem no one else could, one that had been lingering for years. I feel ready and optimistic about a new world of possibilities ahead, enabled by AI. I’m a believer!

What other problems have we accepted as unsolvable simply because we haven't had powerful enough tools to explore them differently?

That question is so profound to me that I have decided to dedicate the next chapter of my career to answering it, beginning by founding Alma, a consulting studio for people and organizations navigating complicated problems, new possibilities, and the technology that connects them.

Watch out, world! The possibilities seem limitless.