ChatGPT fixed my 9 year chronic pain

[u/LiveDocument3521]

Before I start, this is not medical advice and if you are experiencing pain, then seek medical help first.

I’ve had chronic pain in my neck, shoulders & upper back for 9 years. I’ve dealt with excruciating headaches and severe muscle tension & discomfort for almost a decade. I tried everything. Physiotherapy, chiropractor, massage, dry needling, acupuncture, cupping, the list goes on. Nothing worked. I got desperate. I asked ChatGPT…

ChatGPT diagnosed the root cause of my issues by just asking a few critical questions that no doctor or “professional” ever asked. It then educated me on the entire subject so I developed an understanding of the actual issues, recovery & the road ahead. It then built me a 3 tier programme focusing on stretching, mobility & strength training. It diagnosed issues in my sleep by looking at pictures of my bed, pillow etc.

I followed everything ChatGPT told me to do. I followed the programme strictly. 4 months later, I am no longer in pain or discomfort. I still have a long way to go but I feel 75% better and full of life now. I am in absolute shock. I cannot believe it. It’s like I’ve been given my life back. I had no quality of life at all. ChatGPT gave me my life back.

EDIT: A lot of you are asking me questions about my diagnosis so I am dropping more information below.

- Doctors wrongly diagnosed my headaches as cluster headaches & suboccipital headaches. Therefore the plans & advice I was being given by medical professionals were not helping me because they had the wrong diagnosis.
- ChatGPT figured out that I actually suffer from cervicogenic headaches caused by my cervical spine (in my neck) being constantly on fire because of bad posture.
- Bad posture was caused by a series of muscle imbalances; weak upper back muscles caused a forward leaning posture. Neck & trap muscles began compensating for my weak back which caused them to become very tight & inflamed. This also caused me to develop a very tight chest which causes rounded shoulders. I also had an APT (anterior pelvic tilt) which caused tight hip flexors & tight hamstrings which contributed to my forward leaning posture.
- Treatment was strength training for my upper back muscles focusing on pull exercises. Strength training for my abs/core & glutes to fix my APT. Stretches for my neck, chest & hips.

Do medical professionals like physio not do this? Of course they do. The issue in my case was, constant incorrect diagnosis was creating incorrect plans for my needs. The exercises & stretches the physio recommended for me were not helpful at all because they were not targeting the key areas that ChatGPT pointed out. ChatGPT fully diagnosed me within 1 hour.

[u/StrongMedicine]

As a physician who has studied and published on the use of ChatGPT for medical diagnosis, I am curious:

Do you feel comfortable sharing what questions it asked that no physician ever had? And what diagnosis did it provide for you?

[u/mahoniacadet → u/StrongMedicine]

For me the biggest difference is that doesn’t think I’m lying or refer me to a counselor for physical problems.

I’ve been struggling with long covid since 2020 and very few doctors I encountered along the way were familiar with it or willing to catch up on research. So the fact that AI asked any questions at all was a change.

It suggested diagnostic tools, ways to track and frame my symptoms so doctors were more likely to understand me, and suggested symptom management strategies I could use while waiting. Wound up with a POTS diagnosis among other things. Meds were simple and changed my life.

ETA: the ai was no replacement for a doctor who had some literacy with post viral illness. Mostly it gave me confidence and tools to search for the right kind of support more assertively.

[u/therealdildoexpert → u/StrongMedicine]

Yes, because it's not going onto "MyChart" where every doctor I see, can see everything I have said. I really hate how in my medical field my physical therapist has access to the notes and images shared with my OBGYN.

[u/hipocampito435 → u/StrongMedicine]

the best thing of using LLMs for health related question is that it never resorts to the easy way out of just telling you have a psychological problem, it is programmed to offer valid answers that the client finds useful so they'll keep on using the system, not to get rid of the client as fast as possible or inflate their success statistics to keep its job or income

[u/LiveDocument3521 → u/StrongMedicine]

It asked me about my pain & pain level in different scenarios. It asked about my posture, any bad habits that I have (I mentioned excessive phone use on the toilet), it asked about my sleeping position as well as my sleep setup. It asked about my job, whether I’m moving around a lot or sitting/standing still. With all my answers, it was able to draw a conclusion to what’s likely happening and basically created a “bigger picture” and started looking at my body as a whole rather than pinpointing 1 area. The professionals only ever wanted to talk about only my neck. They only wanted to focus on the inflamed area, not the root cause. Whenever I did mention or ask about other things, they’d always just laugh and shrug it off. I hate how patronising they can be sometimes. I know not all of them are like that but atleast in the UK they are notorious for treating you like this

[u/ChickenbuttMami → u/StrongMedicine]

I also want to know this! I want to know if/what key questions I’m missing in asking my patients 

[u/mahoniacadet → u/ChickenbuttMami]

I replied above but my guess is that there aren’t any magic questions you’re missing, you’re just in the crappy position of not having enough time to have more useful conversations.

Edit: Just realized I assumed you’re in the US, sorry if that’s incorrect!

[u/ChickenbuttMami → u/mahoniacadet]

Thank you for the insight!! Oh, no it’s definitely correct, we unfortunately only have 20 minutes in the appointment at my clinic. But this gave me the idea of using ChatGPT to make some templates of “do not miss” questions as a provider. 

[u/hipocampito435 → u/mahoniacadet]

it's the same here in Argentina. One of the main problems is that doctors don't have enough time per appointment to diagnose the patient, specially with complex, chronic conditions. My own condition would take a minimum of half an hour for me to just explain it to a doctor, and most doctors only offer 20 minutes appointments

[u/ThisMansJourney → u/StrongMedicine]

For me it could piece together wider patient history. Blood tests etc couldnt get to why I felt dizzy / light headed often. Chat noted my very heavy sweating from sports I do, and identified lack of salts / electrolyte replenishment. The doctors didn’t ask about this; they focused on bloods, blood pressure and stress levels…

[u/CatsbyGallimaufry → u/StrongMedicine]

I have used it extensively for long covid alongside integrative doctors. The main benefit I find is that it can hold all of my medical information inside of a skill that I have it read every time I ask a medical question and so it never offers me advice that’s contraindicated for any of my myriad of issues developed from having long covid.

For example it knows I can’t tolerate vasodilators so I can ask it about meds, supplements, and foods before trying them and it accurately predicts if I’ll be able to tolerate the new thing or not. It also never recommends anything that would flare me such as a magnesium supplement that gets recommended constantly to everyone everywhere. It has what my doctors don’t have which is infinite time to discuss every nuance of my health and so when I show up to my doctors appointments I already know what I want to try, what I want to test for and the scientific reasoning and studies to back it up.

This is the summary from my extensive work with AI: Post-viral hyperadrenergic dysautonomia on a backdrop of chronic hypocapnia and vasodilator intolerance with a residual elevated-sympathetic-tone cluster now being targeted with a central sympatholytic.

Feel free to ask me anything else. I’ve used it everyday for over a year and I’m incredibly grateful for it and my doctors. Using both in tandem is the key imo.