Ask HN: How many of you now use AI over doctors | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: How many of you now use AI over doctors

5 pointswonderwonder8 comments

I have recently essentially ceased using doctors for most run of the mill items and instead turned to Ai to diagnose and recommend treatment and then purchased the medications from online pharmacies.

For example I order my own blood work. I decide what labs to order and interpret the results via chatGPT / Grok, etc. I then order medications via online pharmacies. Recently started taking High blood pressure medication all worked out with Ai and the results have been great.

I still use doctors for things I cannot such as colonoscopy, etc but for everything else I use Ai.

I just got frustrated at having to wait 6 - 8 weeks to see a doctor, get labs and then wait another 6 - 8 weeks to see them to review the labs when I can get the entire thing resolved myself in a week.

Anyone else do the same?

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You won't really know if this is working out until it doesn't work out.

I'm not sure what all you can do yourself, but doctors generally won't do unnecessary tests because there is a real cost-benefit analysis that must be done. If you order a test that you don't need, and it produces a false positive and leads to intervention that isn't needed, you could cause real harm to yourself. People have all sorts of irregularities in their bodies that don't cause health problems.

Even trained physicians are cautious about interpreting test results outside of a clinical context, and they need to be understood alongside medical history, symptoms, and risk factors.

Self-diagnosis can cause anxiety, unnecessary treatments, or delays in addressing the real problem because the data was misinterpreted. Medicine isn’t just about having data, it’s about knowing what not to do with it.

Also, an AI system isn't going to have a lot of training data for cases where the patient had nothing wrong - they don't tend to write case studies about your ordinary doctor visit.

Overall I agree with you but I think its an individual by individual basis. For me it started when I asked my doctor for a glp1 prescription a year ago. She said no and said I would need to see another doctor for that in the same medical system (another 6 - 8 week wait).

This... irked me. So I went online and ordered it myself for a literal fraction of the price. In the year since I have taken my cholesterol and lipids from absolute garbage to perfection. My BP has been high for over a decade, its perfect now. I have lost 40 pounds of fat while maintaining muscle. Currently have a 6 pack and bench 405lbs and a little over 200lbs body weight. I am also on testosterone which I manage myself while also managing estrogen sides, etc.

Everything has become so much smoother and quicker since I just stepped away from the normal medical system and started doing it on my own. I look 20 years younger and my blood work is perfect. Recently got a colonoscopy (no anesthesia) as well and everything was good, need another in 7 - 10 years. Even the fact they force anesthesia on the majority of the patients irritated me. Its a 20 minute procedure that is uncomfortable at worst. Why force someone to lose an entire day, depend on a ride home, etc.

I just don't understand the point of the medical system for the Hacker News crowd. Now something like cancer of course, established medical system all the way, I am not advocating for recklessness.

So you are doing steroids (not TRT)? You may look and feel 20 years younger, it's probably a different story for the most important muscle in your body (the heart). If you're benching 405 (holy shit, btw), at 200lbs, that tells me you may be gaslighting yourself about your ability to solo this. The medical system is really not great to navigate, and it's getting worse over time, but you really have to be honest with yourself if you're cycling test.

Side note: I got a colonoscopy without anesthesia in the US. It's kinda funny you bring that up, because this was recent and they treated me like an alien for not wanting the drugs. But they allowed me to do it and it was fine.

I'm on 200 mg of testosterone. Perhaps a tad over TRT for some but really in the ballpark. We can call it TRT++ to avoid argument :). My heart is fine, pulse is perfect. BP is perfect. I get blood work done every 4 months.

The thing that irked me about the colonoscopy is that they initially refused, said the doctor didn't do it and when I said cool I'll find another doctor, they suddenly discovered he did. They passively aggressively try to force it on you.

Walk around the airport sometime and look at all the people enrolled in the standard medical system. I can promise you my labs and health are better than 99% of them. This is in no way an attack on those people. I don't know any of them and wish them long lives and happiness.

Intent of this thread though was not to cast stones, I was just really curious if others are doing the same. Appears so far that the answer is no. I think modern medicine is incredible, I just don't personally like the method in which its applied.

> Recently started taking High blood pressure medication all worked out with Ai and the results have been great.

If you started on it recently, how do you know it’s going great? Giving yourself an illness from wrong medication doesn’t take a week.

https://archive.ph/20250808145022/https://www.404media.co/gu...

Its a standard ARB BP medication, not a witches potion. How do I know it worked? I test my BP at the same time every day.

You got the meds from an online pharmacy without a prescription?

Correct. Most of them just charge a nominal fee to have a in house doctor rubber stamp a prescription for you.

There is of course a limit, I can get blood pressure or cholesterol meds but not something like Adderal

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