I come back time and again to the difference between reasonable and recommended. A recommendation in medicine is something you would be unwise to ignore as a doctor. Reasonable is something that you as a patient should do. A doctor is going to tell you all the recommended things because the way medicine works is all around what is shown to a reasonable statistical level to be a good idea, or at least seems that way. They will still recommend some things that are nonsense and they will still make mistakes, but they won't be sued.

If you try something and that works for you then you have a sample of one. It may have done nothing and the problem resolved itself, it may have solved the problem, it may even have slowed your recovery, but if you have the same problem again it is fairly reasonable to do the same thing that seemed to work last time. It isn't proof, but it is reasonable to try again.

Does having a kebab on the way home from a night of drinking actually prevent hangovers? Well, maybe, it does have salt and that is depleted during drinking, but is a doctor ever going to recommend that? No, never.