Two months ago, I started feeling severe muscle pain in my arms, legs, hips, neck, and shoulders.
I’m not talking about an ache or occasional stab. I’m talking about acute, chronic pain, 24/7.
And it kept getting worse. It was hard to walk, impossible to sleep, and my arm was in too much pain to even pick up a full cup of coffee.
Yet I didn’t feel sick. I hadn’t suffered a recent injury.
But I was in so much agonizing pain that I couldn’t even pick something off the floor without getting down on one knee.
I’ve been blessed with good health my entire life – something we all tend to take for granted – and live a pretty healthy lifestyle.
This was something new. And entirely miserable.
I tried to see my general practitioner in July before I left for The Oxford Club’s tour of Switzerland.
But she was out so I saw a new doctor in her office instead.
Looking over past notes, he saw that I had an arthritic spine and a minor rotator cuff tear.
When I told him about my severe pain, he said that what I was feeling was “totally normal for someone your age and in your condition.”
“Normal?” I said, in disbelief. “You should spend 24 hours in my body.”
He asked me what I was taking for the pain.
“Nothing,” I told him truthfully. “I don’t want anything to prevent me from determining whether I’m getting better or worse.”
He told me I should take 4,000 mg of Tylenol a day.
I knew that wouldn’t fix the problem, but I thought it might dull the pain.
It did, a little. But I soon learned that it’s not safe to take that much long term… or even short-term if you’re a social drinker. He didn’t mention either.
He recommended a book called “Tell Me Where It Hurts: The Science of Pain and How to Heal” by Rachel Zoffness.
I read it on the flight to Switzerland. And while the book does a decent job of explaining how pain works, the overriding (and, frankly, insulting) message is that your problem is in your head.
The brain processes the pain you feel and – just as you can temporarily relieve boredom or worry by distracting yourself – the key, in the author’s view, is to get your mind off your pain.
That’s easier said than done when virtually every movement causes you to cringe or gasp.
I am not a hypochondriac or complainer about my health. If anything, I’m the opposite.
I’ve spent my adult life trying to eat healthy, exercise regularly, and stay as far away from doctors as possible.
(A favorite quote: An apple a day keeps the doctor away, especially if you throw it really hard.)
But this chronic pain was entirely new – and it kept getting worse.
I already had a pain specialist for my spine and rotator cuff, two long-time issues. He attributed what I was feeling to these – even though I told him it felt like something else entirely.
Since my pain kept getting worse – and my specialist was on vacation – I went back to my general practitioner (not her substitute).
I wanted to make sure that I didn’t undersell my symptoms. I was in agony. I said that if I were a pet, the humane thing to do would be to put me down. It was that bad.
She shook her head and ordered several blood tests. But when they came back, she didn’t see anything terribly abnormal and still didn’t know what was wrong with me.
She asked me to hobble back the next week for more tests.
At the end of my rope, I turned to the AI platform Claude, where I have a $100-a-month subscription.
I gave it all my symptoms, told it all about my preconditions, and shared all the things I had already told my doctors.
The answer came back immediately: this pattern is characteristic of polymyalgia rheumatica (PMR).
I had never heard of it.
PMR is an inflammatory condition, mostly in people over 50, that attacks the shoulders, neck and hips, causing intense discomfort.
Nobody is sure what causes it.
The good news? It responds well to low-dose prednisone, sometimes in as little as 24 hours.
I know. I know…
An AI platform is not a doctor. It has no license, no practice, and no ability to examine me.
Moreover, I’m well aware that AI platforms can make mistakes, and that they deliver a wrong answer in the same confident, reassuring tone they use for a right one.
But I was out of options.
Claude told me I needed my specialist to recommend specific labs: a comprehensive metabolic panel including ESR, CRP, CK, TSH, and CBC.
My specialist approved and I was giving blood at Quest within an hour. Yet when the results came back – with elevated CRP – he said he still couldn’t make a diagnosis. It wasn’t his field.
He wanted to refer me to a rheumatologist, who probably couldn’t see me for at least six months.
In desperation, I said, “Well, can’t you just put me on the prednisone and see what happens?”
He agreed. When I got to the pharmacy an hour later, I opened the bottle and downed a full day’s dose immediately.
Within a few hours, my pain began to abate. I slept through the night with no pain for the first time in two months.
And the next morning – after another half dose – I felt like I had been touched by the hand of Jesus himself.
I had no pain in my arms, legs, hips, back, or shoulders. Zero pain anywhere.
It was nothing short of miraculous. Thank you, Claude!
It may seem wrong to give the credit to an AI platform. But three doctors looked at this. And three doctors drew a blank.
Somewhere between despair and desperation, I typed my symptoms into Claude.
Bear in mind, a search engine would have handed me a list of everything from a pinched nerve to a Parkinson’s diagnosis, arranged by advertising spend.
Instead, I had an actual conversation, where I described what hurt, when it hurt, and how bad it hurt.
To his credit, my specialist did not get defensive or deliver a lecture on the perils of consulting a computer.
He also did not make me wait half a year to hear the same diagnosis from a rheumatologist. He wrote the prescription (even if it was at my suggestion).
Polymyalgia rheumatica is not obscure. Any competent rheumatologist would have landed on it in about 90 seconds, and would then have done the blood work and the physical exam that I, sitting with a chatbot, could not do.
The bottleneck in American medicine is not intelligence. It’s access.
A 15-minute appointment with a generalist – or even the wrong specialist – is an awfully brief period to describe a serious problem.
And what if you had to wait six months or longer for that appointment?
What the chatbot gave me was 24/7 availability, the patience to hear all the boring details, and a hypothesis specific enough to take into the exam room.
Claude didn’t literally save my life. But if you truly knew how I felt before and after, the result was nothing short of life-changing.
I’m keeping the rheumatology appointment, by the way. Feeling wonderful is not the same as being finished, and I want a specialist managing the taper.
(Prednisone for this ailment typically runs many months, sometimes a couple of years, and patients need to come off it slowly.)
There is a financial takeaway here. (And I’m not just talking about the Claude subscription, which ranks among the best money I’ve ever spent, for more reasons than I can even touch on here.)
In my book “The Secret of Shelter Island,” I talk about some of the most important things that money can buy:
It determines the neighborhood you live in and the kind of school your kids go to. It’s the difference between using a good doctor and an amazing doctor. If you need a lawyer, it’s the difference between an ambulance chaser and getting the best legal representation that money can buy.
After you reach a certain age, you should not refer to your doctor as someone who is “very professional” or “really nice.”
You should describe your doctor as “amazing.” Full stop.
I can’t do that. But my new mission is to find him or her.
In the meantime, at least I have Claude.
Wow Alex your narrative is enlightening and unfortunately not too uncommon. I empathize with your frustration at not getting any relief or at least any answers…. I’ve been there and have not been as lucky. But I’m very happy for you. Enjoy each pain-free day. Cathy R
My wife calls Chat GPT her doctor that isn’t a doctor. We have had the same experience a few times, although not quite as painful. I can’t recommend taking Alex’s approach highly enough.
I too have had to wait on medical appointments that seem to have a long wait time or lead in the wrong direction. I am currently working through a condition that need surgery. The process should have been resolved in 45 to 60 days, but is dragging out do to long wait times for appointment and miss direction.
Since back pain has multiple causes, 90% of low back pain is simply labeled “nonspecific,” the most common causes go unrecognized and patients are placed on a standardized escalation ladder instead, where almost every rung either misses the actual cause or worsens it (e.g., all the common pain medications have serious issues).
•Some spinal surgeries are necessary or offer tangible benefits. Fusions, the most lucrative ones, have repeatedly failed to outperform non-surgical care in randomized trials while carrying a host of common and serious complications, yet have become increasingly favored — a dynamic illustrated by an extensive investigation of one hospital that generated record revenues from high-volume neurosurgery while its own physicians resigned and departed in protest over what they described as inappropriate surgeries and unsafe conditions.
•Meanwhile, countries without the wealth to sustain a medical monopoly actively explored inexpensive alternatives, and Russia and Eastern Europe built an entire literature around treating disc herniations and radiculopathies with topical DMSO, including a placebo-controlled trial and national treatment guidelines. Hundreds of readers here have independently found the same thing, including many recovering from fusions that had already failed them.
•This article will detail why each step of the conventional pathway is dangerous, the forgotten approaches my colleagues and I have relied upon for decades to resolve neck and back pain without surgery and how DMSO specifically can be used in these instances.
One of the greatest issues in healthcare, which I believe is a reflection of the society at large, is that everything has become so rushed that there is no longer time for doctors to actually connect with their patients. Because of this, a lot of the most critical parts of medicine get missed, and I have known so many patients who were harmed by the medical system because of the fifteen-minute-visit model.
I hope you are feeling much better and were able to enjoy Switzerland.
May I suggest you have a look at A Mid Western Doctor’s Substack. It is the top site in its category, praised by other doctors. He has been doing research on treatments that went out of patent and were dropped by Big Pharma as unprofitable, including DMSO. He has detailed (and I mean detailed) research on its effects on many major diseases, including arthritis, strokes, heart disease among others.
Kind regards
Suzanne Bradley
I had the exact same story with my GP.
I had PMR and he missed it .
Went to Romi and he agreed
Next time I will use Chat GPD.for answers
John Cassin
Sorry you have that and had to go through that. A decent GP should have been able to get to that diagnose easier. In the 1980’s my mother experienced similar pain. She went to her GP in a small town in western PA and got properly diagnosed and treated. This doctor was no genius – in later years I referred to him as doctor quack as he and my father’s urologist did not prevent my father from getting metastisized prostate cancer (by simply continuing PSA tests in his 80’s knowing his brother had had prostate cancer). Glad you’re getting some relief.
I have an amazing doctor and I showed him this article. He does agree with you about the future of AI
But he said any doctor of internal medicine with the symptoms you described the first thing he should check for is that disease?
The fact that your doctor didn’t do the appropriate tests tells him you’re going to the wrong doctor as a matter of fact, anyone who would say what your doctor said shouldn’t be allowed to practice medicine.
If you need to speak with him further, his name is Eric Terman MD and he is with Northwestern hospital in Chicago downtown. OFFICE phone 312-712-9999. I’m sure he can refer you to someone very good near you.
Alex,
I am an emergency physician (46 yrs practice, 40 in academics at the University of Chicago, the last 5 yrs serving rural, critical access hospitals in the ED. Given the title of the article, the chief complaint of diffuse myalgias, I looked at your picture, assumed you were likely 55+yo) and read the first paragraph that you had been suffering for 2 months which along with the diffuse myalgias, was key. It took me about 30 seconds in total to diagnose polymyalgia rheumatica (PMR) as you are the right age and gave the classic complaint and duration to make this diagnosis. If I had seen you in the ED I would have ordered the tests that you mentioned, started you on prednisone, 20mg daily (a full 30 day course to ensure you had enough medication until you saw a rheumatologist to confirm the clinical diagnosis that I was confident was correct and to manage the eventual tapering off prednisone – my only request would have been that you notify me if I was in error).
The point of my note is that Claude was right and came to the correct diagnosis promptly (and I am aware of the evidence that AI, especially the more recent updated versions are often better at diagnosis than clinicians) and yes, our current health care system is not providing what patients need with regard to access and prompt diagnosis and treatment BUT next time do not put up with 2 months of anything that ails you and consider concierge medicine. You get immediate access to a confident, seasoned clinician who will get you a prompt specialist visit to sort out/confirm what you need. I know that is essentially an overt admission that our health care system is failing but you did not deserve what happened to you.
If all else fails, call me.
David S Howes, MD, FACEP, Emergency Physician, Rural Critical Access Hospitals. Professor of Medicine and Pediatrics (Retired), Emergency Medicine Program Director Emeritus, University of Chicago, Cell: 847-571-3077
I went through the same exact experience with PMR. I saw an orthopedic specialist and was told I needed a hip replacement and a rotator cuff surgery. I researched my symptoms on Google AI and learned that I probably had PMR. A blood test confirmed it. My primary doctor prescribed Prednisone and fortunately I got an appointment with a rheumatologist in a week. AI saved me from unnecessary surgery and led me to instant relief.
Glad to hear that you’re feeling better. The medical system definitely needs an overhaul. I’ve been told more than once by doctors that educating yourself is your best chance at solving medical issues and prevention. It’s pretty amazing the diagnosis Claude gave you. Thanks for sharing, hopefully you can get over this ailment for good. Longtime subscriber and reader ,William
Alex, Welcome to the blue collar world of “socialized medicine” that “we”, the worker bees, have been living in for the last few decades. Big Brother is, in this case, the Insurance cabal that determines what your doctor can and cannot do to get paid, as long as each little item is broken out and coded correctly. They have their own database of diseases and diagnoses (AI) that the doctors must adhere to and they don’t dare venture into the realm of a specialist. That could open the window to the dreaded LAYWERS! (Que foreboding music: DUN, DUN, DUH!) You’re fortunate to be able to afford $100/ month for Claude. It can give you a somewhat educated opinion that your Primary Care Physician can’t afford to render without falling under the scrutiny of Big Brother Insurance and the risk of malpractice. Those of us having to pay for our medical insurance (Medicare B, D, and whatever else) are limited to the information we might be able to get from sites like WebMD in between our 15 minute, semi-annual appointments that might get us a referral to a specialist if our symptoms are convincing enough. My opinion is that Doctorin’ is becoming more of a trade than a profession. Isn’t it funny that there isn’t legal insurance that dictates what lawyers can charge for representation or for each individual piece of advice as opposed to a flat hourly rate, and what punitive amounts are allowed (Tort reform? Que more foreboding music: DUN, DUN, DUH!)
I completely agree. While ChatGPT has it’s place and usefulness, Claude rationalizes a bit better. It tends to go the extra mile in trying to provide an answer, and will ask when it cannot be sure what you want. He does well with scenario planning and predictions when fed the data. Has changed a strategy or two for me.
Hate to say it but your issues are the reason medical care in Mexico works. Cash is King at private hospitals. All the tests you went through would’ve been probably $500-$1000 usd at most. And you would’ve had your diagnosis in a day or less.
I’ve lived here for years now and the medical care is very good, access is almost immediate and you own the test results, not the insurance company and not the doctor.
And it’s a fraction of the price (usually 1/4 to 1/3) of the cost of care in the USA.
Sorry you went through this. Next time hop a flight to Mexico and get the care you need quickly.
This a fantastic article and I am glad you discovered Claude which helped you with an accurate diagnosis. It sounds like you need better and more amazing doctors than what you currently have.
Alex,
As I started reading this piece, I began to realize that your symptoms sounded very familiar. I met PMR in the fall of 2005. Fortunately, my primary care doctor recognized what I was going through, diagnosed it as PMR and subscribed Prednisone. Like you, my symptoms disappeared in a few days. I’ve been able to reduce my dosage to 3 or 4 tablets per day, but unfortunately my hands an shoulders continue to bother me intermittently. You showed no signs of PMR in Switzerland so I never would have guessed we were sharing sharing the same nightmarish experience. Glad to hear you’re doing much better now.
Wow your doctor experience is the same as ours up here in Boston.
Alex, I went downhill for a year. 2 docs told me it was my neck. The pain as you mention was terrible. What i had you did not was fire running down my arms and broken glass under my kneecaps. I was taking an ungodly amount of Ibuprofen to even walk. If i fell I had to have help getting up. folks were thinking I was on my deathbed. Finally went to see my GP. He told me what i had in the first minute. wrote me scrip for prednisone. Told me to take some before i left the pharmacy. Also said which you did not to not get around anyone who is ill. It knocks down your immune system. I was told a cold would take hospital care and a flu would kill me. In one week I was 100% out of pain. I thanked every god and guru I could think of. took me two years to ween myself of the drug. I also ditched the other two doctors. I had been seeing both of them for more than 20 years each. And I told them why I was walking away from them. when my GP retired a few years ago i thanked him from the bottom of my heart. I am also told my PMR is quiet. But if it ever comes back I sure know what to do. glad you found the cure.
Yes, I’ve been on a medicare advantage plan for over 11 years. the weight to see a specialist is often 6 months, and then there are times when the wait is extended another 3 months or so because the specialist is out of the office that day!
Funny, long waits for appts are usually the argument against single payer or “socialized medicine”. Had very good luck with an emergency dental appt in Canada on vacation, it was cheaper, too, than the same procedure would have been with my dentist. We deserve better
Alex – Thank you for sharing your experience. Great to know you are feeling much better!!! We are also fortunate to have you and the Team be our AMAZING investment guides.