Two weeks is a long time to feel rough, but I kept telling myself it was “just the flu.” It’s been on BBC Breakfast every day for weeks now, the flu is everywhere, and it really wiped me out, wrecked my appetite, and had me sweating through my T-shirt every evening. My smart ring wasn’t impressed either. It kept flashing warnings at me: low HRV, higher body temperature, a jumpy resting heart rate, and a respiratory rate that felt like it belonged to someone twice my age.
Everyone around me pleaded with me to see a doctor. My wife. My parents. Even my mother-in-law. They were all convinced something wasn’t right. I, being stubborn and apparently allergic to common sense, decided I didn’t want to waste the doctor’s time. I’m young(ish), reasonably healthy, and thought the super-flu would eventually get bored and leave.
By day 14, it still hadn’t. I’d lost my appetite, lost my sense of taste and smell, and could barely get up the stairs without feeling winded. So I did the only thing I could do without leaving the sofa: I asked ChatGPT what was going on.
I wasn’t expecting anything groundbreaking. I know full well it’s not a doctor, and I’d planned to double-check whatever it said. But I figured it could at least tell me if this was normal, or if I was being an idiot.
Instead, it told me this: “I can’t tell you exactly what’s wrong, but the pattern you’re describing fits more with an infection that isn’t resolving on its own — viral, bacterial, or something sitting in your chest like pneumonia.”
Then it added the kicker: “Here’s the honest part: this is the point where you shouldn’t try to ride it out… Persistent fever and shortness of breath aren’t something to wait on.”
I asked if I might get better on my own. It didn’t sugarcoat it: “Possibly… but the breathing issue and the length of the fever make it much harder to say that safely.”
That made me sit up. Not literally, I wasn’t doing much sitting at this point.
Then, for reasons that make sense only when you’re ill and cranky, I switched to Gemini and asked what happens if you leave pneumonia untreated. Gemini, in fairness, didn’t mess about. It basically said, “It can kill you,” handed me a WebMD link, and left me to stew in my own anxiety.
That was enough for me. I booked a GP appointment immediately.
I was seen the same day. My GP listened to my chest, nodded in that way doctors do when they hear something they don’t like, and prescribed antibiotics on the spot for a secondary bacterial infection. It turns out waiting it out wasn’t the winning strategy I’d imagined.
So yes, in a strange, slightly dystopian way, ChatGPT probably did save my life, or at least nudged me through the door of the GP surgery before things got worse.
But here’s where things took a turn.
Before the appointment, I’d asked Gemini another question: “Are antibiotics a small tablet that’s easy to swallow?” I struggle with tablets, and I wanted to know what I was getting into.
Gemini replied confidently: “Amoxicillin 500mg is often large and can be difficult to swallow. However, there are alternative forms available for adults.”
So far, so good.
Then it said that Doxycycline, one of the alternatives, works like this: “You drop these into a small amount of water, and they dissolve into a drinkable liquid.”
No. No, they do not.
If you dropped a Doxycycline capsule into water and drank it, you’d be in for a very bad time. These things are famously harsh on your throat and stomach if not swallowed properly. You absolutely do not open them, dissolve them, or treat them like Berocca.
Luckily, I mentioned my tablet anxiety to the GP, and she did prescribe Doxycycline because it’s smaller. Of course, I took them as instructed by the doctor (swallowing them), and the leaflet makes no mention of being able to dissolve them in water.
And that’s the point of this little story. While AI can be helpful, it can also get dangerously confident about things it absolutely shouldn’t guess at. You might be sensible enough not to follow medical instructions from a chatbot, but not everyone is. And even sensible people get desperate when they’re ill.
So yes, ChatGPT pushed me to get help sooner. And Gemini reminded me why you always, always, talk to a doctor before you act on anything health-related you read online.
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