Chris Kresser

Hello all
My wife and I are both patients here, we joined up over a year back when he had to do the lottery based system. We were thankful to have that opportunity. Based on other reviews I will make one thing very clear. Their emails and paperwork are simple to understand and clear about the initial cost of $ 350. They would never charge someone without their knowledge. Actually we have to approve all invoices prior to us being charged.
Next their emails, many of them were clear if you did not sign up once your original email was received within a couple of weeks they had to move on. Every person had ample time to join once they were chosen.
I will say yes they are busy and growing. But his patient care is still spot on. We are never rushed, he knows are tests, and knows everything about us prior to our appointments. The process is quite easy actually and very organized.
His care though is why people want in. His care for us has revealed things we never knew. Our treatment is focused and his prices are beyond fair. The healing I have received and the attention I get is truly amazing. I feel like I am his only patient and I am his only focus. Soon I will likely not need to see him that often. My wife is a tougher case and he has not backed down from her challenges at all. It’s also nice to know they have a larger staff of doctors, more doctors collaborating on tougher cases just means better care. He even consulted with an outside expert on my wife’s case, by the way no charge for that was ever made, he did that for free because he cares and wants her well.
Hope this review helps someone, we know his care can. Thanks to his entire staff for all their support.

My experience with scheduling an appointment with Chris Kresser was truly a journey through hell. Their process for new patients shows both incompetence as well as extraordinary cruelty and lack of basic human decency.
When I first contacted their office in June of 2012, I was told his practice was closed to new patients and there was no waiting list. I contacted them by phone several months later and they agreed to put me on a waiting list.
I contacted them in February of 2013, and they had lost my name on their waiting list. I went onto a new waiting list.
On 5÷6÷2013, Chris’s office sent me a SINGLE email asking me if I want to make an appointment. I did not see the email. I get 400 emails a day and I am a human being, and I missed one. Did they attempt to call me on the cell phone I left with them? Did they attempt another email? No, they arbitrarily dropped me from the waiting list after one attempt to reach me.
I follow up with them in July, and I get this email back from Shannon Martin on 7÷18÷2013:
«I did place you on the waiting list as requested back in February of this year, and we contacted you via email on 5÷6÷13 (copy below)»
«We did not receive a response back from you.»
«I apologize, but we cannot add you to the current waiting list. It’s at maximum capacity and extends out to early 2016.»
Let me get this right: you make me wait two years after my first contact to see this guy, lose my name from your waiting list, and then drop me from the second waiting list after one attempted email contact. The analogy I would make is that you go to an expensive restaurant and are told that you will need to wait 90 minutes. You really want to eat there, so you say okay. You wait 90 minutes and don’t hear their call when your turn comes up. When you check in 10 minutes later they tell you «Sorry, sir, but we called your name and you didn’t answer, so we dropped you from the waiting list. The new waiting list goes past the time we close. Bye.»
Except what they did to me was infinitely worse than that. I have been in a health crisis that normal doctors were not able to resolve. I made a decision to wait for this guy and in the end they simply toyed with my life and with my health with delay after delay after delay and not even the most basic level of human decency in structuring their policies.
Despite multiple attempts to get back on the waiting list they refused, and their letters were all rude, dismissive, and failed to recognize what an indecent thing they had done to me.
As things stand something was seriously wrong with me. I have been to eight specialists in the last year and now my latest nightmare is I have a doctor looking for some kind of adrenalin-​secreting tumor. My life has been a miserable hell and has basically fallen apart. Maybe Chris would have seen the markers that showed my pituitary hormones were all high and abnormal, and maybe he would not. But to make anyone who is sick go through this disgusting process they have is just not moral.
If Chris is so popular that he generates waiting lists that are 500 people long, and that requires his staff to treat human beings as they treated me, then maybe Chris just needs to increase his prices. How do you serve patients well at all acting the way you do? The long waits, and the absolutely inhuman refusal to see people who miss a single email, is beyond contemptible.

Mr Kresser notes the merits of self testing for low stomach acid and also suggests the merits of supplementing with HCL. I got similar advice from a nutritionist about getting off of PPIs and supplementing with HCL.
DON’T DO IT!
The PPI I was taking eliminated my symptoms of chest pain and esophageal distress. At that time I had absolutely no issues with my stomach, intestines, digestion, or regular bowel movements. AFTER stopping the PPI I started taking HCL as Mr. Kresser suggests.
What a disaster. I immediately developed irregularity in my bowel movements, my stomach became aggravated, my intestines were aggravated and I started having tons of gas. My entire digestive system was a train wreck.
I have stopped the HCL and am returning to normal, but
I’m still struggling with intestinal difficulties that I did not have before.
I read much on the web by non-​doctors that advocated HCL supplementation as Kresser does and in theory it all sounded sensible. Well in practice it was not and I’ve paid the price for listening to alternative healers and the feedback from people on the net.
Consult with a real GI doctor before ever trying to supplement with HCL and save yourself a lot of grief!
JK — San Francisco

I saw Chris and unfortunately, although he has a lot of knowledge and keeps up with the latest research, he was quite lackadaisical with me. He proscribed supplements for me that not only didn’t make me feel better but actually much much worse. He was very hard to get ahold of and when he did finally get back to me he did not seem especially concerned. His services are very expensive as were the supplements so naturally I expected better since the reason I went to see him was that he very detailed blood work done but that didn’t seem to be taken fully into account. Lately, I saw a presentation that he gave about one of my issues and although it was really good, he did not tell me all the information he should have according to this information. I guess if you are willing to spend lots of money, eventually he might help you. I did not want to pay anymore.

Unlike so many other people we visited to deal with our health, Chris takes a data-​based approach rather than just guessing. Highly recommend to anyone who has complex health problems that others have not been able to solve. My husband had a problem that many others had not been able to do anything about for years, and his tests uncovered several issues that enabled us to address them. Many thanks to him!

What follows is a sample of the office managers communication style:
After the above mentioned unexpected additional charge of $ 333 I wrote:
«I am having a panic attack about the change in the billing and lacking a reply from you regarding this snafu.
Would you please email me to confirm it has been returned?»
Diane Mills, Office Manager, replied
«You e-​mailed me 18 minutes ago. I do not sit in front of my computer every waking minute. You have been answered via another e-​mail.»