As a complex chronic disease naturopath in London, I regularly see patients whose autoimmune disease, stealth infection or unresolved illness has stopped responding to treatments that used to work. If you have a complex chronic condition, or a significant family history of one, I may be able to support you alongside the medications your doctor prescribes, addressing side effects, rebuilding your resilience and working on the underlying factors driving your condition.
Living with a condition that resists easy answers takes its own toll, separate from the illness itself. The exhaustion of explaining your case again to a new specialist. The strain an invisible illness puts on relationships when others can’t see what you’re dealing with. A quiet grief for the life you’d planned before this became part of it. Wanting someone to finally piece the whole picture together isn’t asking too much.
A broken leg is straightforward to treat, reset, immobilise, allow time, and the result is predictable. Many conditions don’t work this way. I regularly see patients with autoimmune disease, including neurological autoimmunity, connective tissue disorders, chronic depression, cardiovascular disease, stealth infections such as Epstein-Barr virus, Lyme disease and co-infections, long Covid, and mould-related illness. These are conditions that resist resolution, recur due to dysregulated immune function, become treatment-resistant, or simply stop responding to treatments that used to work.
What the evidence actually points to
Autoimmunity can be silent for years before diagnosis
In conditions such as rheumatoid arthritis and lupus, the relevant autoantibodies have been shown to be present in the blood years before any symptoms appear or a diagnosis is made. This preclinical window is well documented in the research, which is why a family history or early, vague symptoms are worth investigating rather than waiting for a full-blown diagnosis, and why normal standard bloods at one point in time don’t rule this out later.
Stealth infections and Epstein-Barr virus reactivation
Stealth infections, such as Epstein-Barr virus and Lyme disease, are ones that can persist or reactivate below the level picked up by standard testing, and still contribute to chronic symptoms. EBV, which most people carry from childhood without issue, can reactivate under immune stress and contribute directly to fatigue and other symptoms in a subset of chronic illness presentations. This is increasingly well supported in the post-viral and long Covid literature specifically.
Mould illness (CIRS) is real to the people experiencing it, and genuinely contested in the evidence
This is worth stating plainly rather than glossing over. Chronic Inflammatory Response Syndrome, the label some clinicians use for a multisystem illness following exposure to water-damaged buildings, is not currently a recognised medical diagnosis, mainstream bodies such as the CDC and WHO don’t list it, and there’s no standardised diagnostic criteria across the field. There is a genuine and growing body of research into biomarkers and mechanisms, but it remains contested, not settled. I work with this presentation because I see it clinically, and I think it’s more honest to tell you where the evidence actually stands, a contested diagnosis with no definitive test or cure, than to present it as settled.
Where I see people get this wrong
The first mistake is applying a single generic detox or antimicrobial protocol to every complex case, rather than a full case history and testing to work out which of several possible drivers is actually present.
The second is stopping investigation the moment standard bloods come back normal, when normal standard bloods don’t rule out silent autoimmunity, viral reactivation, or environmental illness, they simply mean the standard panel didn’t catch it.
The third, specific to mould and CIRS, is presenting it to patients as a settled diagnosis with a definitive test and cure, which sets up expectations the evidence doesn’t support.
What a complex chronic disease naturopath in London actually investigates
Where a presentation needs specialist medical input, autoimmune diagnosis, infectious disease review, or specific environmental testing, I’ll say so and support you in getting it alongside the naturopathic work, your specialist or rheumatologist stays involved for diagnosis and medical management throughout. I look to understand the root causes of your condition before deciding on the right combination of approaches, herbal medicine, hyperbaric oxygen, light therapy and nutritional therapy among them, to build a personalised plan for recovery, reduced side effects and better quality of life. This supports immune regulation and addresses underlying drivers, which can often improve symptoms and slow progression, that’s different from reversing or curing the condition, and I won’t claim otherwise.
If this sounds like where you are, apply for a 15 minute consultation and let’s work out the best way forward.
