Eric's Health History

Since 2008, at age 25, I began suffering from a mysterious digestive and sleep disorder: I couldn't sleep without eating huge amounts of protein, and I had gradually increasing intolerance to most foods and other substances — at this point including any cream or moisturizer; even plain olive oil on my skin causes cold-like inflammation the next day.

In the summer of 2022 my condition began to decline, culminating in a trip to the ER in the winter of 2024 that necessitated an emergency nephrostomy.

This document is an attempt to give an in-depth understanding of my experience, attempted interventions, and so on — in an attempt to find solutions.

I have to eat a narrow diet with a huge volume of protein to feel stable: 800–900g of boiled chicken daily (roughly 250–280g of protein), at times as high as 1,600g (~500g of protein).

If I don't meet this quota, I suffer the following:

• Waking during the night
• Debilitating cognitive symptoms
• Debilitating metabolic symptoms
• A cold within 2–3 days if I push through and ignore this
• Pneumonia or another severe infection if I continue to ignore it

I've tried endless interventions — see Attempted Therapies — nothing seems to help.

This diet has been in place, with periods of relative stability and decline, since roughly 2015–2016 (see In-depth History for the 2022–2024 decline and hospitalization that most recently disrupted it).

Hover or focus a marker for a quick summary; click through for the full write-up. Being filled in period by period — see In-depth History for what's not on here yet.