OpenAI’s chatbot, ChatGPT, is still making waves worldwide and surprising people with its exceptional capabilities. Ever since its advent, people across the world have been using the bot for a variety of tasks. Now, one woman has claimed that she found the correct diagnosis for her four-year-old son’s chronic pain, with the help of ChatGPT.
As reported by Today, Courtney revealed that her four-year-old son Alex was suffering from toothache, ”gigantic meltdowns”, and was also not growing in height.
When he started chewing things, she took him to the dentist, wondering if his molars were coming in and causing pain. The dentist ”ruled everything out” and suggested her to visit an orthodontist specializing in airway obstruction. The orthodontist found that Alex’s palate was too small for his mouth and teeth, which made it tougher for him to breathe at night. He was given an expander, which only helped him briefly.
Courtney then noticed Alex had stopped growing taller, so they visited the pediatrician, who said that it could be a pandemic aftereffect and thereafter suggested physical therapy.
However, before starting physical therapy, Alex started experiencing severe headaches, and a neurologist, said he had migraines. He also saw an ear, nose, and throat specialist to see if his sleep problems were due to his sinus cavities.
After visiting 17 doctors, over three years, Alex’s issue still had no diagnosis that explained all his symptoms.
”We saw so many doctors. We ended up in the ER at one point. I kept pushing. Nobody’s willing to solve the greater problem. Nobody will even give you a clue about what the diagnosis could be,” Courtney said.
Frustrated, she then sought help from an unlikely source and signed up for ChatGPT, where she shared her son’s symptoms and all the information from medical reports.
”I went line by line of everything that was in his (MRI notes) and plugged it into ChatGPT. I put the note in there about … how he wouldn’t sit crisscross applesauce. To me, that was a huge trigger (that) a structural thing could be wrong,” she said.
In response, ChatGPT suggested Alex was suffering from a rare neurological condition called tethered cord syndrome. She then found a Facebook group for families of children with tethered cord syndrome and later visited a neurosurgeon who examined Alex’s MRI images and figured out the problem.
Alex underwent surgery to fix his tethered cord syndrome a few weeks ago and is now recovering.
According to the American Association of Neurological Surgeons, tethered spinal cord syndrome is a neurologic disorder caused by tissue attachments that limit the movement of the spinal cord within the spinal column.
