17 doctors over 3 years couldn't diagnose 4-year-old's pain. ChatGPT finally provides answers

The mother decided to take help from ChatGPT to find a diagnosis for her son, created an account and shared details about the symptoms. (Representational Image).

The advent and growth of artificial intelligence (AI) tool ChatGPT has helped several industries perform repetitive tasks more easily and save time for other high priority chores.

The growing inclination towards the tool was emphasised further after a woman decided to find out from ChatGPT the diagnosis for her four-year-old son, who was suffering from toothache and was also not growing in height.

"I have to give him Motrin (pain relieving drug) every day, or he has these gigantic meltdowns. If he had Motrin, he was totally fine," the mother of the boy-identified as Alex- Courtney said to Today.com.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, Alex started to chew things which caused him pain and forced Courtney, who has another child apart from Alex, to look for a doctor. For three years, she could not find a solution to her son's pain and other symptoms that he was suffering from.

"We saw so many doctors. We ended up in the ER at one point. I kept pushing. I really spent the night on the (computer). going through all these things," she added.

Soon, she also realised that Alex had stopped growing taller and consulted a doctor, who said that it could be an COVID-19 aftereffect.

"He'd grown a little bit. He would lead with his right foot and just bring his left foot along for the ride," she said.

Then after visiting 17 doctors, the breakthrough came, albeit from an unusual source. Courtney decided to take help from ChatGPT to find out what was causing her son to suffer from toothache and stunted growth.

After sharing the symptoms on ChatGPT, she found that Alex had been suffering from a rare neurological condition called tethered cord syndrome. She then joined a Facebook group that comprised whose children, too, suffered from the condition.

"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.

Courtney scheduled an appointment with a neurosurgeon and told her she suspected her son had been suffering from tethered cord syndrome. The doctor had a look at the MRI and figured out what Alex had been going through. Alex later underwent a surgery for the condition a few week ago.

This is not the first instance in which ChatGPT has helped find the diagnosis for a medical condition.

In March, a Twitter user shared how the AI tool had helped identify the correct diagnosis for his pet dog even when the doctors could not do so.

What is tethered cord syndrome?

As per the American Association of Neurolgical Surgeons, tethered cord syndrome occurs when the tissue in the spinal cord forms attachments, which restricts the movements of the spinal cord, causing the body part to stretch abnormally.