Yesterday was the 1st of September – the first day of Spring if you live on my side of the world – or the first day of Autumn-fall if you don’t.
It’s a time of transition; these in-between seasons (which are actually my favorites because they don’t get too hot or too cold (thank you Goldilocks (my migraine-brain))).
It’s also a busy time for plants – it’s now that many of them break out in bold bloom, or fall apart in a blaze of golden amber.
There’s an app that you can get for your phone where you point the camera at your sick pot-plant and the AI doo-dad in the app ‘diagnoses’ your plant based on its appearance and says “getting too much water” (and yep – that’s a deliberate throw back to my over-nurturing post!). The app then tells you what to do to fix the pot plant; give it more sunshine, put the plant in a bigger pot, delegate the watering routine to one member of the family in order to avoid over-watering, and so on.
Imagine if someone could come up with an app that you point the camera at your head, or heart, or maybe your eye, and it says “migraine” or “flu” and recommends what you should do next to heal yourself.
The reason I’m thinking about it, isn’t so much because I need to be diagnosed or need advice on what to do next – no – my motivation is a bit bleaker than that. What I’d like the app for is so that I could diagnose myself AND THEN show the results to others. Imagine being able to show people and say “see – it’s not just a bad headache – I’m not just being a drama queen”. Imagine being able to use it when you go to the doctors. You could say “I get regular migraines and I think that the new CGRP medications would help my improvement”, and when the doctor says, “yeah-nah just take some more over the counter meds and have a lie down”, you could spin your phone around and say, “hold your horses and look here!”
I guess Dr Google already exists, and doctors everywhere can’t stand it as they roll their eyes and say, “hypochondriacs come on in”. But I think that’s unfair. The human body is so complicated, migraine is so complicated, do they really think they can know everything about everyone from 6 years of training at university? I’m not trying to be rude to doctors – I have friends who are doctors – but, because they’re friends, I also know they’re human. Sometimes they get tired, sometimes they’re moody, sometimes they’re in a rush…
I’m conflicted about AI as I’ve said before on this blog. I don’t love the idea that some ‘web-crawler‘ is stealing my words and regurgitating them back for some lazy author who wants to pretend they know about a subject they know nothing about… BUT… I also enjoy asking my computer to use AI to generate art that helps explain what it feels like to have a migraine, in a way that is much more sophisticated (and way faster) than I could ever create all on my own.
The future of healthcare will be AI generated, I have no doubt. And whilst that raises some concerns, if it means I can get an app that proves my see-how-wilty-I-am perspective, maybe that’s OK.
Take care, from a conflicted Linda x
[PS – as well as being the first day of Spring, yesterday was also Father’s Day in Australia – so a shout out to my dad and all the other dads around the world, whether it’s officially father’s day or not – you’re the best, we love you!]
The Mindful Migraine 
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