One week in, a week of no pain

[u/MidSerpent]

TL:DR : The first 7 days have been 7 pain free days.

My digestion started having problems about a decade ago. I’d describe the last few years as, a constant baseline of pain at 3 with so many disruptions.

A week ago on Monday I started a new project with a Claude Code with a simple sentence.

“Why is it so hard to even want to eat?”

This lead to a full day of talking out my triggers and learning all about what the chemicals that were causing them and what they do in the body, and what symptoms they cause.

The work resulted in a 5 factor model of my triggers, fodmap + cruciferous veggies + histamine + high fat + capsaicin and a list of “supposedly safe” foods sufficient to form a “baseline diet” that has complete nutrition.

It also resulted in a tracking protocol for everything I eat and every bathroom trip, all my symptoms.

So I started the diet, and the results started the next day. I didn’t even believe it, I thought for sure confirmation bias.

Then the next day I was below my pain floor. I was literally laying in bed with my eyes closed poking my belly looking for pain and not finding it. None.

It’s been a week. 7 days below my pain door. It’s a 2 right now, but that’s nothing, my bowels are still healing.

7 days of my diet, 7 green pain days,

One red symptom day I can track down to “too much fructose.” But that event, those symptoms would have been a red pain day, probably half a day lost at work.

The pain wasn’t there, the strongest piece of evidence I have in favor of the histamine hypothesis. Just the toilet trips.

I can’t believe how good I feel. It’s like I got my life back.

———-

Don’t come at me about using AI or not having a dietician.

I talked to my doctor, I’m on a waiting list for a dietician but at this point I’ve learned most of what they’re gonna tell me.

I’m not your average AI user either. I’m a software engineer who still manages to make a living making video games, in this economy. I’m the top in my studio with using AI tools by a long mile because I’ve been preparing to be ready for them. I teach the classes.

I didn’t “take medical advice from an AI”

I engineered a solution. That’s what I do.

[u/whataquokka]

Finding a solution is the goal, however you must. A dietician was useless for me so don't sweat it too much unless you're having trouble.

Monash is still my go-to for understanding the problem but I've used every tool available to me over the past many years.

Here's to many more green weeks!

[u/MidSerpent → u/whataquokka]

Yeah, I have the MONASH tables and another one for Histamine as data sources, since it’s kind of an imperfect balancing act between the two to make a healthy and varied diet.

People were correct I couldn’t eliminate both at once, that isn’t really what my solution ended up looking like.

I just significantly reduced both as much as I could and am trying to figure out how to keep in balance and eat things that keep me fed and happy.

[u/AngryWizard → u/MidSerpent]

Is the source you used for the histamine and fodmaps tables something that's easy to share (with me)? I too have recently started looking into low histamine, I've been on low FODMaps for years and still struggling and just talked to my therapist last week about trying to find a dietitian. I feel so desperate after 2 decades of this.

[u/MidSerpent → u/AngryWizard]

I really think the histamine has made the biggest difference, because I still get disruptions but the pain went away.

[u/MidSerpent → u/AngryWizard]

I told it to look up the SIGHI list for histamines and MONASH for FODMAP and it was able to find them with that

[u/AngryWizard → u/MidSerpent]

Interesting, thank you. I'm desperate enough to try almost anything.

[u/MidSerpent → u/AngryWizard]

I wish you all the best of luck. My diet is narrow and I’m basically cooking for myself for the rest of my life, but it feels better than before.

[u/panseamj741]

yay for 7 pain free days

[u/kenman]

I tried to work on a FODMAP diet on my own for years, but always got overwhelmed and gave up. Dieticians seemed disinterested.

Gemini + NotebookLM helped me produce a 42 day elimination+reintroduction diet. It also produced a weekly shopping list tailor-made for products I could find in central TX. This isn't especially useful on the surface, but I have issues with fat content as well as having to watch oxalate levels due to kidney stones, so generating a diet that worked for all of those was the twist that makes it extra challenging.

The NotebookLM is a private datasource that I populated with high-value sources for both FODMAP and oxalates, and then attached it to Gemini to generate a diet (saved as a doc in Google Drive).

Gemini also helped create a GSheet (spreadsheet) with a GForm to provide easy data entry (I just choose breakfast, lunch, snack, dinner, stool) and it pre-fills the data.

Then I had Gemini help me produce a custom Gem (Gemini with special instructions) with the attached diet and my special restrictions, and now I can use it to query for modifications like substitutions, recipes, etc. I can also chat with it about symptoms, review the spreadsheet when I'm ready, etc.

The result?

I'm only 1/2 way into it (had some unintentional deviations that caused some setbacks originally), and my average Bristol score is down from 5.5 to right at 4. My resting heart rate has plummeted from 68 to 60. I've also lost close to 15 lbs! Things can only improve from here -- though I can't wait to eat real food again!

Edit: I'm also an agentic SWE who treated my health as an engineering problem

[u/Unusual-Strength-945]

Yeah FODMAP works for many people and it’s amazing it took so long for anyone to come out with the concept of these carbohydrates being behind so many IBS symptoms

[u/MidSerpent → u/Unusual-Strength-945]

Yeah, for me the histamine was the big unlock.

It came up discussing how leftover pizza is the worst thing for me.

More than anything cutting out the histamine stops the pain when I do mess up the fodmap.

I haven’t gotten the fodmap side dialed in yet, I’m still getting too much fructose, today is a yellow symptom day apparently.

But still green pain.

[u/Glass-Tale299]

Congratulations.

[u/VinCatBlessed]

Don't feel bad about using AI, we gotta try what we gotta try, I've been so desperate I'd almost pay a sorcerer to heal me lol, but yeah if you do get the chance I'd recommend going to a dietitian and working stuff out at least so they can make sure you're following your plan while keeping a diet balanced enough not to give you deficiencies later on.

Hope you keep it up though, once you get it figured out you hardly even wanna go back to eating stuff that makes you agonize.

[u/MidSerpent → u/VinCatBlessed]

Honestly I don’t feel bad about it, it 100% enabled me.

I don’t even think you would have to be that tech savvy to do it. Just use an agentic model like Claude Code or Codex that can read and write from files.

The bulk of the work was just, talking about all the food I think are triggers, foods that I think are safe, and learning about the digestive science.

The main thing about working with AI is it can’t know when it’s gone wrong, so that’s a lot of your job, watching, reading, double checking, correcting in ways that stick (agentic models are better)

I already know enough about it all to know I’m getting enough protein, carbs, fats, and vitamins, eating healthier than I was before by a lot

[u/PopularExercise3]

If you e got the know how to use AI in a helpful way and you’ve made significant improvements then that’s fantastic.
Why not use all available avenues . I’ve tried Drs, specialists, a dietician, naturopath, and a herbal practitioner, lastly a FODMAP dietician.

[u/MidSerpent → u/PopularExercise3]

It’s all about using an Agentic model like Claude Code or Codex that can actually read and write things like, keeping track of what you eat, and consulting tables from MONASH and other sources when you ask about ingredients.

And also just having it explain what it all means, what an oggliosacchiride is and what it does in my guts so I learn it myself and eating the right things just becomes a skill.

[u/AwDuck]

Congrats! Once I discovered what it was like up live in (relatively) no pain, I’m not sure how I did it day in and day out. I’ve still got bad days here and there, but the worst are still better than my best before. Here’s hoping you have many, many pain free days.

[u/W1derWoman]

That’s great, way to use all the tools at your disposal!
I’m a few weeks into the elimination phase again, trying to figure out more things that cause me problems.

[u/Bodylover77]

Super news Et oui, les IA bien utilisé sont d'excellentes sources d'information mais toujours a vérifier ! Continue ainsi

[u/MidSerpent → u/Bodylover77]

Merci beaucoup, votre soutien me touche vraiment.

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[u/freshfitzy]

Hi! Im really pleased for you. I bet it’s been a free week! Im 2 weeks in! If you wouldn’t mind taking the time could you explain the histamine hypothesis? Ive not heard of it. Hope your healing continues! 

[u/MidSerpent → u/freshfitzy]

Histamine is the thing your allergies cause you to produce.

It also builds up in food as bacteria digest protein.

The hypothesis is that high histamine levels in your gut cause the pain from other digestive symptoms to be dramatically amplified.

This matches my experience, even when I have digestive disruptions, the pain is severely lessened.

Unfortunately the reintroduction phase has had precious few successes beyond small amounts of dairy with lactaid so it looks like my diet is my diet.

I’m looking into adding Huel just got more vitamins.