You've been let down by the system that was supposed to help you.
A free 90-minute health coaching consultation for unexplained symptoms and chronic conditions. We'll look at the whole picture and work out practical next steps.
Book my free video callOnline via Google Meet. No phone call, no hard sell. I'll email you the link.A free 90-minute video consultation with Dr Catriona Walsh, a nutrition and lifestyle coach and former hospital paediatrician, for people with chronic illness or unexplained symptoms. We go through your whole health history together, and you leave with clearer next steps. No diagnosis needed, no cost, and no pressure to keep working together.
If this is where you are
Maybe your tests came back “normal” and nobody can explain why you feel so ill. Maybe your tests showed something real, and your doctor still isn't doing anything useful about it. Maybe you've been given a diagnosis you agree with, but the treatment plan isn't working, and nobody seems interested in why.
Something isn't right, and the system that was supposed to help you has either missed it, dismissed it, or handed you a prescription and moved on.
You've probably spent more hours researching your own health than every doctor you've seen put together. You've gathered evidence, sought second opinions, maybe paid out of pocket for tests that should have been offered through your plan in the first place. And after all of that, you're still fighting to be believed. Your relationships are strained by it. Your trust in the people who were supposed to help is in pieces. You're exhausted in a way sleep doesn't fix, and your brain won't hold a thought.
I call this being Medically Forsaken.
The system forsakes you when it stops asking useful questions. Sometimes that's a label. Sometimes it's “I don't know what to do with you,” followed by a warning not to trust anyone who might. Sometimes it's advice that has already made you worse, repeated as if the evidence never moved. Eventually, after every route back has been tried and refused, you forsake the system in return. It's a lonely, painful place to stand, and if you're there right now, I want you to know that I've stood there too.
Underneath all of it, there's a grief that nobody around you can see, because the illness itself is invisible. You've probably had the thought that it would almost be easier if you'd been diagnosed with cancer, because at least people understand cancer. That isn't self-pity. It's exhaustion from having to prove, every single day, that something is actually wrong.
And then there's what you've had to give up. The things you used to do without thinking: a day out with the kids, an evening with friends, the work you were once brilliant at. Maybe you've lost your independence, or you're scared you're about to. Maybe the people around you are picking up the slack, and you can see what it's costing them. The life you had before, the one you'd planned, is not the life you're living now.
This call is for you.
It's also for you if you're living with a chronic illness that nobody can explain, or if you're not sure what's wrong yet. If you just know that something shifted, and nothing has been the same since.
The door closes
A label, a shrug or outdated advice ended the search for useful answers.Building your own case
Second opinions, reports and tests. You gathered the evidence yourself.Medically Forsaken
Every route back was tried and refused. Eventually, you stopped trusting the system.Someone looks at the whole story
Your symptoms, history and interrupted life are finally considered together.Room for life again
Less firefighting. More clarity, capacity and space for your own life.You talk.
I listen.
Properly.
I'll ask about your whole health story, not just the bit that sent you searching. What you eat, how you sleep, what your energy does across the day, what you've tried, what helped, what made things worse. The medications, the supplements, the diets, the things that worked for a week and then stopped.
I'll also ask about the parts most practitioners skip: confidence, relationships, trust in your own instincts, whether you've started doubting yourself, and whether the people around you believe you. Those things aren't separate from your physical health. They're tangled up in it, and I want to understand the whole picture.
By the end, I'll share the insights I'm picking up, where I'd focus next through nutrition and lifestyle, and whether working together makes sense for your situation, because sometimes it doesn't, and I'd rather say so than waste your time.
This isn't a fifteen-minute funnel where I pitch you a package. It's a proper conversation. Ninety minutes. If you walk away with nothing but a clearer picture of your own health, that's a good call.
What you'll walk away with
Not a miracle cure. A clearer map.
- Insights from the broader picture of your life and health, and where I'd focus next if I were in your shoes.
- A sense of whether the things you've been trying are on the right track, heading nowhere, or making things worse.
- The first steps of what a nutrition and lifestyle approach could look like for your specific situation, not a generic protocol.
- Straight answers where I can give them, and honesty where I can't.
- If you want to keep working together, what that looks like and what it costs. No limited-time offer and no hard sell. You decide in your own time.
How it works
Pick a time
Click the button below to see my calendar. Choose a date and time that works for you, wherever you are in the world. Check that the time zone shown is yours before you pick a slot. The booking system will ask for your name, email and a couple of short questions so I can prepare.
Check your email
You'll get a confirmation from TidyCal straight away with a Google Meet link. If it doesn't arrive within a few minutes, check your spam or junk folder. If you still can't find it, email admin@thefoodphoenix.co.uk and I'll sort it.
Join the video call
At your appointment time, click the Google Meet link. You can join from a phone, tablet or computer. If you haven't used Google Meet before, try the link a day or two early. It's free and you don't need a Google account.
A quick note: this is a video call over the internet, not a phone call. I won't ring you, and I won't ask for your phone number. Everything happens through the Google Meet link in your confirmation email.
Book my free video callIn their words
Take your time with these stories.
“For 15 years, I spent most of my time in bed, wracked with pain and in a fog of depression. Now, my goodness, the changes. More energy, a routine again, and clear skin. I have a life again.”Susan Prentice, Northern Ireland
Who you'll be talking to
I'm Dr Catriona Walsh. I'm a nutrition and lifestyle coach, a former consultant paediatrician (Cambridge-trained), and a patient. I had a gadolinium contrast MRI in 2016, and my health fell apart afterwards.
I co-authored the largest patient-led survey on symptoms after gadolinium contrast (324 patients), and I work alongside Professor Brent Wagner's research team on gadolinium toxicity and Dr Susan Owens on oxalate research. I wrote a book about what happened to me and what I learned. My work has been featured on Sky News, in the Daily Mail, and on BBC Radio Ulster.
You're probably used to people discussing complex illness from a safe professional distance. I haven't had that distance. I've lived the collapse, the doubt and the work of finding a way forward. And I've spent years helping others do the same.
Before you book
Is the call actually free, or does it turn into a sales pitch?
It's free, and it's not a pitch. You get ninety minutes to go through your health properly. At the end, if it makes sense to carry on together, I'll tell you what that looks like and what it costs; if it doesn't, I'll tell you that instead. I'd genuinely rather send you off with a clearer picture and never hear from you again than talk you into something that won't help.
Do I need a diagnosis to book?
No. Come whether your tests keep coming back "normal", whether you've been given a diagnosis nobody can be bothered to treat, or whether you've been handed a label that has never once fitted what you're actually living with. You don't have to have it worked out. Most people don't; that's rather the point.
This sounds like my life. What do you mean by "Medically Forsaken"?
It's the name I gave to something people recognise before even I finish explaining what it is. Seven-minute appointments with one eye on the clock. "Your bloods are normal, so there's nothing we can do." A referral to a psychologist, or a leaflet about stress, and the quiet suggestion that you're the problem. Enough of that and you stop going back; eventually you forsake the system as thoroughly as it forsook you. I did too.
Is this just about food and physical symptoms?
No. Your body and your energy, yes; but also what this has done to your confidence, your friendships, your ability to hold a thought for more than a minute, and your faith in every institution that was meant to catch you. The physical symptoms are maybe half of it. The rest is the part most practitioners never ask about, and it's usually where people feel most alone.
Will you understand how much this has taken from me?
Yes, because I've felt most of it myself. The guilt: what did I do to cause this, and what is it costing the people I love to carry me through it. The shame of not coping the way you used to. The anger at a system that shrugged, and some days the anger at yourself. The weeks so flat and grey that getting dressed is the whole achievement. And underneath all of it, grief, not only for your health but for the life you'd sketched out, the plans, the person you were before. Most people are surprised how much of the call ends up here. I never am.
Will you actually take me seriously?
Yes. I worked as a hospital paediatrician for seventeen years, I coach now, and I've been the patient nobody could explain, sat in the chair being told to try harder. So I won't wave you off with "it's just stress" or "you look well". Stress is real, and it drives part of almost every chronic illness; but "it's all in your head" is a different claim, and usually the wrong one. I'll take the whole story seriously, because I remember what it cost me when no one did.
Is this alternative medicine, or wishful thinking?
Some of it is alternative, yes. If you want to run homeopathy or reiki or crystals alongside what we do, that's your call; I'm not here to police it. Wishful thinking is another matter. I kept the evidence-based training and added the open mind I didn't have back then; open, but not so open that my brain falls out. I read the journals, including cutting-edge work your doctor won't have met and I never came across in medicine or a single functional-medicine course; then I watch how real people actually respond, and I put the pieces together from an angle nobody else has taken. No magic beans. I do recommend supplements, and I'll tell you straight when something sits outside what I can help with.
Why is it free, and why so long?
Because ninety minutes is honestly what it takes. Your story is usually a tangle of history, tests, medications and dead ends, and an hour barely scratches it. I also happen to like the part where someone finally understands what's going on in their own body. If we work together afterwards, that's when I charge. If we don't, you've still had a proper, unhurried look at the whole picture.
What happens after the call?
You decide, in your own time. If you'd like me to, I might drop you a note a bit later to see whether any questions surfaced; if you'd rather I didn't, say so and I won't. Either way, the next move is yours.
Imagine leaving one conversation knowing which threads are worth pulling first, with a clearer sense of what to try next when another night of research has stopped giving you answers.
One proper conversation can start below. ↓
Whenever you're ready One proper conversation can start below. ↓
Bring me the whole tangled story.
You don't need to know exactly what's wrong, have everything organised or arrive with the right questions. Bring what you've noticed, what you've tried and where you've got stuck. In 90 minutes, we'll look at the broader picture and work out where I'd focus next through nutrition and lifestyle.
Book my free video callPrefer to email first? Email me.