How this Economist Used Spreadsheets to Heal Autoimmune Disease

Mette Dyhrberg was a young teenager in Denmark when she experienced her first autoimmune symptoms and was ultimately diagnosed with psoriasis. This was the beginning of a decades-long struggle with autoimmune symptoms and chronic illness, which led to five more diagnoses, a ton of drug prescriptions, and, ultimately, the realization that she wasn’t far from death. That’s when she decided to take control of her treatment, find true health — and build the symptom-tracking app Mymee that helps others do the same.

*This is a short clip from Mette’s full interview— click here to watch the whole thing.*

You can also listen to an audio version of this interview on The WellBe Podcast.

More and More Signs of Autoimmune Disease, But No Satisfying Answers

At age 14, Mette woke up one morning and noticed three small red dots on her neck. She didn’t think much of it, but the next morning she woke up to find that the dots were now all over her body.  “The shock in and of itself was pretty disturbing to a young girl,” she says.

After being diagnosed with psoriasis, she consulted with a famous Danish acupuncturist. He recommended several lifestyle changes, including a shift in climate and a supplement regimen, which were effective at clearing up her psoriasis, but soon different autoimmune symptoms began to accumulate. 

Mette couldn’t drink any alcohol without becoming sick for days afterward, and she began gaining weight rapidly, despite a restrictive diet and intense exercise program. Through it all, her blood work showed that she was in perfect health (yet another reminder that signs of autoimmune disease can often be more telling than numbers on lab tests!).

After moving to Los Angeles from Denmark, a new and alarming issue presented itself: she began losing her eyesight. As Mette describes it, “I’d be going into the kitchen to fetch something, and I could see the kitchen clearly, but as I would get close to the kitchen table, it would all grey out.”

As the instances of vision loss continued, she also began getting hot flashes and fainting unexpectedly. Still, her blood work was fine, and so she began to find ways to fit her life around her autoimmune symptoms, walking up stairs carefully so she wouldn’t faint and seriously hurt herself. “That’s one of the things that I think about with chronically ill people,” Mette said, “that we kind of come across as okay because we find ways around it.”

Soon, she couldn’t climb one flight of stairs without becoming breathless, and upped her search for an answer. She went to a psychiatrist, hoping in vain to be diagnosed as a hypochondriac, and even saw a veterinarian — seriously! — who ended up diagnosing her with insulin resistance.

From there, things spiraled. “My latter half of my 20s pretty much was collecting disease labels and drugs like candy,” Mette says. She was put on blood thinners and cholesterol drugs, prescribed Humira, and diagnosed with psoriatic arthritis and Sjögren syndrome — among many other disease labels and pharmaceuticals (For those who don’t know, Humira is a strong immunosuppressive drug used to treat a variety of conditions, and it comes with a laundry list of serious side effects.).

Even as more signs of autoimmune disease appeared, Mette began avoiding doctors so as not to gather more diagnoses and yet more prescriptions. To all of her treatment providers, she would ask the same question: Is there anything I can do, any changes I can make to help? Each would always answer no, and she didn’t question them.

Using Spreadsheets to Track Symptoms and Heal

Then in her mid-30’s, Mette had a wake-up call: one day, her doctors called to tell her they had great news. That news, she soon learned, was that she wasn’t going to die “in the immediate future” — and they all seemed happy with that prognosis. 

Mette, on the other hand, was not. Finally understanding how dire her situation was, she put her economist training to use and began tracking everything — diet, symptoms, and more— in detailed Excel spreadsheets. She tested different diets (like steak and eggs for three days, for example) and different lifestyle tweaks, and looked for patterns. She did A/B tests, adjusted her behavior accordingly, and then tested again. Slowly, she watched autoimmune symptoms fall away — and with them, the collection of diagnoses that had defined her life. 

Though the work required diligence, patience, and extreme organization, it paid off. Just 16 months after she took things into her own hands, Mette normalized her blood work and got off all medications. “I’m seven years drug- and symptom-free today,” she now says, knocking on wood. 

Founding the Symptom-Tracking App Mymee

Mette’s journey showed her firsthand the uphill battle that autoimmune patients must fight in order to receive effective diagnoses and treatment. Though her economist training and analytic mind prepared her to get to the root of her issues and heal them naturally, she knows that not everyone has the time, patience, or disposition to do this kind of rigorous detective work. That’s why she founded the symptom-tracking app Mymee.

Mymee, as Mette describes it, is “a digital therapeutics company where we identify triggers in order to reverse disease symptoms for autoimmune patients.” At its core, Mymee is a symptom-tracking app that streamlines the process Mette established for herself with spreadsheets on her computer. It makes it simple to monitor and track your symptoms so that you can identify factors that might trigger or mitigate your autoimmune issues in real time. There’s also a certified Mymee health coach dedicated to each case, giving users knowledgeable, personalized insight into what their symptoms might mean. 

Have you ever played detective with your own symptoms to identify a condition? Share your story in the comments below!

Watch our full interview with Mette to learn why some of her friends had no idea she was suffering, how being a CEO influenced her approach to her illness, the role the healthcare system played in her journey, and much more.

You can also listen to an audio version of this interview on The WellBe Podcast.

The story above is anecdotal and specific to this particular individual. Please note that this is not medical advice, and that not all treatments and approaches mentioned will work for everyone.

Mette Dyhrberg is the founder and CEO of Mymee, a digital health innovator committed to improving the quality of life for those with chronic disease. Mette holds an M.Sc in economics from Aarhus University and is a certified health coach by the Functional Medicine Coaching Academy. Find out more information about Mymee here.