I would strongly caution anyone with a complex medical condition to get multiple medical opinions…read morebefore putting their health entirely in the hands of Dr. Peterson.
When I first started seeing Dr. Peterson, I was struggling with significant GI symptoms, including severe abdominal bloating, early fullness, pain, and difficulty eating normally. I had already been diagnosed by medical doctors with gastroparesis, POTS, and possible ehlers/MCAS/ endometriosis. Dr. Peterson told me that I had been misdiagnosed and repeatedly reassured me that I did not have these conditions. He told me that what I had been told by my doctors was essentially wrong and gave me an enormous amount of hope that I could completely recover.
Because I desperately wanted to believe that I wasn't going to have to live with a chronic illness, I trusted him and committed fully to his treatment plan. I went off medications I had previously been taking and began eating foods that my doctors had previously advised me to limit or avoid. I was also instructed to drink a specific type of water and take numerous supplements, with recommendations changing frequently.
I was repeatedly told that my bloating would be gone within a few days. Then a few more days would pass, and I would still have the same symptoms--or sometimes worse symptoms. This cycle continued week after week. I kept being told to give it a little more time because I genuinely wanted to believe that the treatment would work.
Peterson suggested that my oura ring and phone were contributing to making me ill. I was then told to purchase expensive bracelets that were supposed to emit/ interact with certain frequencies. I was willing to try these things because I trusted him and was desperate to get better, but looking back, this was his way of placing blame on why my healing had been prolonged.
I became extremely frustrated and told Dr. Peterson that I needed him to be honest with me if I wasn't improving. After initially telling me that an antibiotic was one of the worst things I could possibly take, he then recommended that same antibiotic.
I had also specifically raised concerns about SIBO/intestinal methanogen overgrowth because of my symptoms. I was told that this was not what was happening, and I continued following the dietary recommendations I had been given for H.Plyori, which I had been tested for by my doctors and was always negative. peterson was persistent that H.plyori was the cause to all of this. Ultimately, I did not experience the improvement I had been promised.
One of the things that made this especially difficult was the amount of hope I was given. At the beginning of treatment, I was told that by September, I would be fully healed and back to normal in time for my sister-in-law's baby shower. I held onto that promise through months of symptoms, hoping that there was finally an end in sight.
Saturday was my sister-in-law's baby shower.
Instead of being healed and back to normal, I am still dealing with the same significant GI issues. My diet remains extremely limited, and I recently underwent another colonoscopy and endoscopy. After those evaluations, another gastroenterologist reconfirmed the diagnosis of gastroparesis--the same diagnosis Dr. Peterson had repeatedly told me I did not have.
That was devastating for me because I had told the people closest to me that I didn't have gastroparesis anymore and that I was going to be okay. I genuinely believed it because I trusted the information I was being given. I now have to come to terms with the fact that this is a chronic condition I have to manage, after being given so much hope that it wasn't actually part of my life.
Once I started the antibiotic that had been recommended, Dr. Peterson and his office stopped reaching out to me. Previously, the office had been contacting me regularly to schedule appointments, but after this point, I was not contacted to reschedule.
I went into this wanting to try every possible option because I desperately wanted to get better. I trusted the process completely and I wish I never did.
