Services
Dr Michelle Henderson is an Integrative General Practitioner whose clinical focus is dysautonomia, hypermobility and connective tissue disorders, and complex, chronic and invisible illness. She works with people whose symptoms span multiple body systems and do not fit neatly within a single diagnosis or specialty, where autonomic, connective tissue, metabolic, gastrointestinal and neurological factors interact.
Her approach is humanistic and relationship-centred, grounded in the understanding that illness is both a biological process and something a person lives with. She takes patients’ accounts of their own bodies seriously and creates space for complexity, uncertainty and differing perspectives. Her aim is to understand the whole person rather than reduce them to a collection of symptoms or a diagnostic label.
Dr Henderson has a particular interest in presentations where several physiological systems are involved and symptoms fluctuate significantly over time. She brings together clinical history, physical findings, previous investigations and the work of other treating practitioners to see patterns that would otherwise be considered separately, while staying clear about what is established, what remains uncertain, and where further investigation or specialist input is appropriate.
Dr Henderson works with people whose symptoms are difficult to explain, validate or manage within single-system models of care. At biio., complex case review brings together medical history, investigations, diagnoses and multidisciplinary perspectives to clarify contributing factors, identify gaps and set priorities for ongoing care. She is interested not only in which diagnosis is present, but in where a diagnostic label helps, where it falls short, and how it meets the person’s own account of their body.
Chronic illness affects more than physical health. It reaches into identity, relationships, work, independence and expectations for the future, and the symptoms themselves can become a source of fear, grief or self-criticism. Dr Henderson’s assessment therefore takes in the biological, psychological, social and spiritual dimensions of illness together, leaving room for medical investigation and for the patient’s own understanding of what is happening to them.
For people living with chronic illness and ongoing uncertainty, Dr Henderson also draws on Mindful Self-Compassion. It offers a way of meeting difficulty that does not require symptoms to be minimised or illness accepted as permanent, and it addresses the additional suffering carried in self-criticism, shame and the expectation of functioning differently from how the body currently allows. She treats it as complementary to medical care: a more compassionate relationship with the body, while the physiological contributors are still investigated and addressed.
Alongside her complex illness work, Dr Henderson has a growing interest in metabolic health, gut microbiome science and healthy longevity. She uses tools such as continuous glucose monitoring to read individual physiological patterns over time, and follows the evolving science on how metabolism, the microbiome and immune function relate. She approaches the field with curiosity and an evidence-informed eye, aware that much of it is still moving. Her interest is less in extending life than in living well across it.