Chronically Ill Woman Reveals Her 5-Step Process For Diagnosis After Using It To Figure Out In ‘5 Seconds’ What 50 Doctors In 14 Years Couldn’t
Doing this will make it much harder for doctors to ignore you.
PBXStudio | Shutterstock Living with health problems is no easy thing. There’s so much uncertainty surrounding what the future will hold and even what tomorrow will look like.
What makes it even more complicated is dealing with medical professionals who don’t know or simply don’t care about what you’re facing. There are plenty of doctors in the world who act like listening to a list of symptoms is a waste of time. TikTok content creator Jessica Wetz knew exactly what that was like, which is why she shared her knowledge with TikTok.
A chronically ill woman shared her simple 5-step process to getting a proper diagnosis:
Wetz was diagnosed with postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome (POTS) and mast cell activation syndrome (MCAS), among other things. She is no stranger to dealing with doctors and searching for answers.
After someone asked Wetz, “How do I research my health?” she decided to share her secrets to getting correct diagnoses, even when doctors aren’t cooperative.
1. Enter your symptoms and/or test results into ChatGPT to find potential illnesses you may have
According to Wetz, ChatGPT may just be superior to Google when you’re trying to find out what’s going on with your health.
“You can ask this anything!” Wetz insisted. “Take that piece of paper you’re bringing into your doctor that lists every symptom you’ve ever had, your family history, every med you’ve ever tried, paste it into ChatGPT and say, ‘What do you think?’”
Wetz said that when you input all of this information into ChatGPT, it can synthesize it and tell you what medical condition you likely have. The same can be done with test results, especially those you don’t understand.
Wetz said she entered five years of her own blood work results into ChatGPT and asked it to look for trends. That’s how she discovered she had liver disease.
Wetz did clarify that you have to “fact check” the information ChatGPT gives you to make sure it is accurate, but it can be extremely beneficial.
2. Use Facebook Groups to find doctors that specialize in those illnesses in your area
“Another thing is I find out what specialist I wanna be referred to before I ask them for a referral to a specialist,” Wetz continued. She said one of the best ways to do that is by using one of the world’s most popular social media sites.
“The way I do this is I go on Facebook,” she instructed. “I go under groups, and then I type in the name of whatever condition I’m suspecting I have, and then the name of my city.”
It’s true that there are support groups for nearly every medical condition in existence on Facebook. Often, members of those groups will ask each other for recommendations on specialists in their area. You can search and sift through this information to find the doctor you would most like to see.
This gives you more autonomy over your medical journey and helps you find specialists who are actually well-versed in your condition.
3. Find articles about your illness on Google Scholar
This can lend a lot of credibility to what you tell your doctor, Wetz said.
“I go on there, type in the condition I think I have, and rather than just writing a list of symptoms on a piece of paper, and showing them the paper, I highlight a medical journal,” she explained.
Don’t just make a symptom list yourself. Instead, find the medical literature that backs it up and shows it is tied to a specific condition. This will prepare you for step four.
4. Read the articles to your doctor and ask for recommended tests and referrals
It’s easy for doctors to dismiss a list of symptoms you’ve written yourself. It’s much more difficult for them to do so with actual articles written by their peers.
“A doctor said it, not me,” Wetz said with a smile.
“You’re telling … me the seven doctors who have been doctors way longer than you, that they’re wrong?” she asked. “So you can take it up with them, not me.”
From there, you can ask for the medical tests and referrals to other doctors that you need, and they’ll probably be more likely to give them to you.
5. If your doctor refuses, ask that they document that they are denying you care
This is, perhaps, the most critical advice Wetz offered. She said that if you went through the rest of her process, and your doctor still refused to treat you, you need to get that in writing.
“This can change their mind as they don’t want proof they denied care if they’re wrong,” she said in the caption of the video. Wetz recommended telling them you’ll be getting a second opinion and showing them the refusal.
While you should definitely seek a second opinion in that case, you are not obligated to show them the previous medical provider’s refusal to treat.
The American Medical Association noted that, outside of emergency situations, there is really no law that says doctors must treat patients, and they are “free to choose” who they care for. However, if a doctor refuses to give you necessary care and there are lasting effects, that could certainly lead to a sticky situation for them.
While there’s no foolproof path to diagnosis, the chronically ill woman's suggestions are definitely helpful.
It may not work in every case, but Wetz has provided viewers with invaluable information.
It is more important now than ever for patients to be involved in their medical treatment and ensure they are getting the care they need. This is one way to do so.
Mary-Faith Martinez is a writer for YourTango who covers entertainment, news and human interest topics.