Did anyone ever tell you that you'd have to become a detective to understand your own body? I learned it one test at a time.
It started in December 2022 with blood in my stool. Here is how the next three years went:
- A CT scan ruled out colitis and a blockage.
- A colonoscopy in May 2023 looked inside my colon.
- A stool test that fall ruled out H. pylori, a bacterium that infects the stomach.
- A blood panel the next spring ruled out celiac disease.
- Another stool test in July 2025 ruled out hidden bleeding.
- Anorectal manometry in October 2025 tested the muscles at the end of my bowel and led to a daily fiber powder.
Six tests looked at my stomach, my colon and my blood. None of them looked at what I was eating.
At a routine checkup with a new internist filling in for my doctor, I ran through everything I'd tried. The plan was to pay for one more test first. Its results would decide whether I could see a nutritionist. General nutrition advice never made sense to me anyway, since eggs kept going from good to bad and back to good. The internist suggested a GI dietitian, trained specifically in how food affects the gut. That conversation finally got me a referral for the food side. It took more than three years to learn the specialty existed.
My first call with the GI dietitian was in January 2026. She sent me a food and symptom tracking spreadsheet that same day. As a techie, I skipped the Excel file and rebuilt it in Google Sheets so it lived in one place and updated in real time. The trouble was mealtime. Stopping to type the date, time and food into a spreadsheet on my phone just never worked. Automating that sheet became the new project. The first entries went into the app in late February.
This series is about what that record has shown us so far.
Takeaways
- Each test answered one question about one part of my body. None of them could show what happens after a meal.
- A GI dietitian works on exactly that question. A complete record gives her the most to work with.
- A record stays complete only when logging fits into real days: dinner with friends, a rushed breakfast.
- That is the problem GI Studio set out to solve.
I'm not a clinician and I don't have a diagnosis. This series is what we've learned so far, told as short stories. Some posts cover how we built the app. Others cover what a GI dietitian does and whether health apps work at all. Later posts ask why advice on foods like eggs keeps flipping and why portion size matters. We'll say how strong the evidence is whenever we cite some.
Questions to take with you
- How many tests have you had so far? What did each one rule out?
- Has your doctor ever mentioned a GI dietitian?
- What do you already keep track of about your gut, even informally?