Lab results fed to an AI turned up anemia a doctor had missed

Laura Shin@laurashin

This morning when I woke up, I thought it was 7:30am, so when I took off my eye mask, I was surprised to find it was only 4:30am. But I felt awake. Not only that, I felt ENERGIZED. I have not felt anything upon waking other than utter exhaustion for at least a decade, but probably more like 16 years.

Last week, I did Function Health Labs, which are super comprehensive. I started getting results back Saturday, fed them to a private AI, and it was freaking out about how I have no energy.

YOU GUYS -- I'm a carnivore and I am ANEMIC. I have eaten red meat 🥩🥩🥩 for 99.99% of my meals for the last two and a half years, and I'm ANEMIC -- wth ferritin stores above 240! (This is so high, it was marked as dangerously high on Function Health.)

It diagnosed me with anemia of chronic inflammation, which I hadn't heard of before, but it explained to me a question I had meant to ask a doctor -- why one iron marker was low when another was high and I was eating so much red meat -- but that doctor missed it because she preferred to spend our appointment time lecturing me about how I needed to eat greens even though I told her that eating this way was making me feel BETTER 🙄. (Pro tip if you're a doctor: if a patient who has been incredibly sick for over a decade tells you something they are doing is making them feel better, BE A HUMAN AND BE EXCITED FOR THEM and don't be a fucking idiot and tell them to go back to eating the way that made them feel worse.)

I spent all weekend talking with the AI about my lab results, and it told me which supplements to take, including a few I already had on hand that it said would help. The main one it said I needed I had to order, and it will arrive next week, so I haven't even been able to take the most important one yet. DESPITE THAT, just taking the one I had lying around for the last seven days allowed me to FEEL ENERGY UPON WAKING!!!!

Is this what it feels like to be a normal human?!?!?!

Feeling energy upon waking made me want to cry. I feel so gypped!!!! I can't believe I'm only 7 days into what I need to do to get over this, and I am not exhausted and fighting to get through the day 😭 If I weren't so fucking excited, I think I'd be crying, but seriously, WTF.

Western medical doctors and the healthcare system are so fucked. Yay for comprehensive labs and AI!!!