When Doctors Said I Was Fine, But I Wasn't

by Ethan Reed, Founder of Temple of Herbs

Part 1: The Blood Test Said Normal. My Body Said Otherwise.

I've been weak my whole life.

Not in an obvious way. Blood tests always came back normal. Doctors would nod, smile, and say I was fine. But I knew I wasn't.

My energy was always low. My pulse was weak. I'd wake up exhausted, my lips pale and sometimes even blue. Just getting out of bed felt like climbing a mountain. My body would swell. Mornings were torture.

The strange thing? I'd feel a bit better in the evening. For about two hours after dinner, I'd get a small window of energy. Then it would disappear again.

I watched healthy people with envy. How did they do it? How did they just... exist... without feeling drained all the time?

I'm a deep thinker. Ideas constantly flood my mind. It's a gift, but also a curse. My brain consumed so much energy that my body had nothing left. I was sensitive to everything—sounds, lights, stress. All of it drained me even more.

My gut suffered the most. When your brain steals all your energy, your digestive system pays the price. And when your gut is weak, you can't absorb nutrients properly. A vicious cycle.

The gut problems led to acne. Then it got worse. As I got older, I developed SIBO—Small Intestinal Bacterial Overgrowth. My stomach was constantly bloated with gas. I couldn't breathe properly without burping. Meeting people became difficult. I couldn't sleep more than two hours without waking up to release the pressure.

I remember thinking: Maybe dying would be easier than this.

I saw doctor after doctor. The conclusion was always the same: "It's stress."

Blood tests, biopsies, endoscopies—everything came back normal. According to medical science, I was healthy.

But I wasn't.

Part 2: When Modern Medicine Ran Out of Answers

I thought about my body constantly. Why is this happening? What's wrong with me? How can I be like other people?

I tried everything the internet promised. Vitamins. Probiotics. Different diets. I spent years on supplements. The advertising made it sound so easy—just take this pill, fix that problem.

Nothing worked. In fact, I started to resent the people selling these products. They were giving false hope to desperate people like me.

My condition only worsened.

I kept digging deeper. Is it my liver? Did stress and anxiety damage it? Is it my pancreas? My kidneys? My heart feels weak too...

It wasn't a simple nutritional deficiency. I'd already tried zinc, calcium, magnesium—all the basics. The human body is far more complex than that. There's so much we don't understand.

I needed to think more fundamentally. Not just about organs or nutrients, but about energy itself.

That's when I turned to traditional Eastern medicine. The principles of Yin-Yang, the Five Elements, the organ systems that Chinese and Korean medicine had studied for thousands of years.

This wasn't pseudoscience. This was thousands of years of clinical data—real people, real treatments, real results. Surely someone like me had existed before. Surely there was a solution hidden in that ancient knowledge.

I visited famous traditional medicine practitioners. I tried their herbal formulas. I asked questions. I experimented.

But even the best practitioners had limitations. They were bound by their own philosophy, their education, their personal clinical experience. Each one had a different approach.

Most of their treatments didn't work for me.

I was running out of options.

Part 3: How AI Found What Doctors Couldn't

Here's where my background changed everything. I'm an AI developer. I know what AI can do that humans can't.

Think about it: thousands of years of medical texts, countless case studies, hundreds of different herbal combinations and their effects. No single human can process all of that. No doctor can remember every case they've read about or studied.

But AI can.

I started working with AI to analyze my condition through the lens of traditional medicine. Together, we identified herb combinations specifically for my body type, my symptoms, my energy patterns.

I experimented on myself. Every month, I updated the formula based on how my body responded. I fed the AI my symptoms, my progress, my setbacks.

After about 5-6 months, something incredible happened.

I felt healthy. Actually healthy. For the first time in 30 years.

The Results I Never Thought Possible

I can exercise now. Every day. Before, just walking around would exhaust me. Now I work out daily.

That heavy, blocked feeling in my stomach after eating? Gone. Food digests normally.

My acne disappeared. Even the acne on my scalp—something I'd dealt with my entire adult life—vanished. I used to have to cut my hair every 4 weeks because letting it grow would trigger breakouts. Now? I can go 3 months without a haircut. That has never happened to me.

I sleep through the night. I don't wake up to urinate anymore. My energy levels are stable throughout the day.

I used to spend hours lying down, too exhausted to move. Now I'm on my feet all day except when I'm sleeping. I have hope. I have energy. The depression and anxiety that came from feeling broken—that's gone too.

It feels miraculous. But when you understand the principles, it makes perfect sense.

The Simple Truth

The body is an energy system. When weak organs are strengthened, when blockages are cleared, when energy flows smoothly—health returns.

It's almost obvious when you think about it that way.

This is the beginning of a series where I'll share the principles, the science, and the real stories behind personalized herbal medicine. Subscribe to follow along.