When Answers Ran Out, She Asked ChatGPT

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Lauren Bannon used the tool to spot an autoimmune clue, press for a thyroid antibody test, and uncover thyroid cancer after months of inconclusive care.

Lauren Bannon, who runs a marketing business and raises two daughters, credits ChatGPT for saving her life after an illness that couldn’t be diagnosed. In February 2024, she started waking up with hands that did not work the way they always had. Her pinky fingers “weren’t bending in the morning and night.” Before long she was also experiencing heart palpitations and a reflux-like sensation when she leaned down. An X-ray came back normal. A rheumatology specialist labeled it seronegative rheumatoid arthritis and prescribed medication, yet Bannon hesitated. “I have never been sick,” she told her husband, and she felt she was too young for arthritis to make sense. She could not shake the sense that something was being missed. For many months, she tried to push through. But by September, she was hit with excruciating stomach pain, a relentless burning that left her surviving off toast and water. A gastrointestinal scope showed inflammation and she was put on proton pump inhibitors, but the inflammation just wouldn’t stop. At home, often late at night, Bannon turned to ChatGPT, a tool she already used for her work in marketing, even though her husband thought she was crazy for talking to a computer. She began entering her symptoms and blood results, looking for patterns across months of data that no single appointment could easily address. When she asked, “what mimics rheumatoid arthritis?” ChatGPT pointed her toward Hashimoto’s disease, an autoimmune thyroid condition where the body attacks itself. ChatGPT urged a specific next step: “Get your doctor to test your TPO level,” referring to a thyroid antibody. Her clinician initially pushed back, because Lauren’s other thyroid labs were normal, but armed with her knowledge and desperate for real answers, Bannon pushed harder. “I need to know what’s going on with me,” she told her doctor. “I want to test it.” The thyroid peroxidase antibody result came back elevated at 220, roughly six times normal levels, confirming an auto-immune condition like Hashimoto’s and leading her to an endocrinologist. From there, a neck scan revealed two lumps, and a biopsy confirmed they were cancer, including an aggressive mutation and probably related to the Hashimoto’s. Bannon then underwent a full thyroid removal, lymph-node surgery, and radioactive iodine to kill the remaining cancer cells, with ongoing scans to monitor whether it’s still in her neck. She believes ChatGPT intervened just in time to prevent the disease from spreading unchecked. “Without it, the cancer would have spread,” she said. If she had simply taken the rheumatoid arthritis medication and stopped searching, “God knows where it would have gone,” she said. ChatGPT empowered Lauren to advocate for herself, ask for the tests she needed, and keep fighting until the healthcare system responded. “It really saved my life.”

When Answers Ran Out, She Asked ChatGPT

Lauren Bannon used the tool to spot an autoimmune clue, press for a thyroid antibody test, and uncover thyroid cancer after months of inconclusive care.

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