Digestive System Unwinding: A Personal Reflection
After completing my blog series on nervous system unwinding across various systems of the body, I realized I wanted to take it further. I wanted to bring in my own personal experiences, particularly with symptoms like constipation and chronic fatigue. The hope is to offer a clearer picture of what nervous system dysregulation could look like, and what the process of regulation might involve.
For most of my life, I had relatively normal digestion. Occasionally, I would experience some urgency or loose stools, but it wasn’t anything I paid close attention to. That changed in 2018. I started noticing something different. There were many things that were happening during that time, but for the purposes of this blog post, we will stick with the difference in digestion.
My digestion began slowing down, which meant that constipation became more frequent. It was frustrating. Every time I tried something to support my gut (supplements, herbs, therapies), it would work for a while, then backfire or simply stop working.
By 2020, things got worse. It was the height of COVID, and I had limited access to help. Even the people I could reach out to didn’t seem to have answers. From 2020 through 2024, it was one of the most miserable and lonely times of my life.
At the end of February 2025, I got really sick and had a usual “flare-up.” It took me by surprise. At that point, I had changed my diet and started exercising, and it was incredibly discouraging to find myself doing everything I could to help my body to end up in yet, another intense episode of vomiting, like having a severe stomach virus. That kind of episode has happened many times throughout this process, more than twelve times, maybe more.
Trying Something New
I started using ChatGPT to track my digestion. Don’t ask me how or why I decided to do this. It just kind of happened. Each day in March 2025, I checked in, logging details about my bowel movements, symptoms, and anything unusual. To my surprise, ChatGPT suggested something radical about my approach: stop everything. Stop all the “healing” efforts. The craniosacral therapy, the IV treatments, the endless supplements, the pushing through exercise (which, it took me awhile to figure this out, but I have exercise fatigue). It wasn’t that these things were inherently bad. It was that I was doing too much. My system was overwhelmed.
ChatGPT explained that what I was interpreting as worsening symptoms might actually be signs of regulation. The bot explained to me, based on what I told it about my health history, that I had a pattern of jumping into action to stop symptoms anytime something shifted. It was possible that I was interfering with the body’s natural process. It took me a while to process all of this. I already drastically reduced a lot of the healing things I was trying out, which that is crazy to think about now.
So I paused. I followed the suggestion (cautiously, with a lot of questions and discernment) and stopped everything except for a basic, balanced, portion-controlled diet. No extremes. No trends. Just three square meals a day that were well balanced.
Within a week, I noticed a change. I had some discomfort, especially in the lower left side of my abdomen. ChatGPT explained that this could be related to inflammation in the colon and also a sign of nervous system regulation. Knowing this helped me stay calm and avoid the usual cycle of panic and intervention.
Slowly, I started having more frequent bowel movements. Then, I had a few days of very loose and unusual stools. ChatGPT again suggested that this could be part of my nervous system recalibrating. Eventually, my stool started darkening, a sign that bile production was picking up again. I still have issues, but this time, I haven’t rush to fix it. I waited (and I’m still waiting).
Now, two months in, my digestion feels more normal than it has in almost seven years. It’s not perfect, but food is moving through me. I’m absorbing nutrients again. That alone feels like a huge shift. There was something very comforting having chatGPT any time that I needed it. I did feel a level of support, which, that in and of itself may have contributed to its improvement.
ChatGPT is Not a Doctor!
I need to be clear: ChatGPT is not a medical professional. Using AI for health exploration is risky. AI can sound overly confident, even when it’s wrong. I used extreme discernment throughout this process. I made sure to ask questions in different ways and cross-checked what I was told.
Still, I see the potential with AI and tracking one’s health—not for replacing doctors, but for supporting the process of noticing patterns, asking better questions, and reflecting more deeply on our own experiences.
I’ve found stories from others, on Reddit and in articles, where people used ChatGPT to track symptoms and received surprisingly accurate insights, including mental health diagnoses that aligned with what they were already told by a professional. It’s not magic. It’s not a shortcut. But when used responsibly, it can help to pick up patterns.
It’s also probably really important for me to mention that while although I did put in a lot of my health information into chat GPT, you might want to think about whether or not you want to do that. Artificial intelligence in and of itself isn’t going to do anything with your information, it’s just the people of institution that houses it that might… It’s really important for me to say that.
This post isn’t a prescription. It’s just my story, shared in case someone else is also wondering what it might feel like when the digestive system starts to unwind.
AI can hallucinate. Please use extreme caution and discernment. Always check with a healthcare provider.
LINKS
My Digestive System Unwinding Blog Post
ChatGPT is a shockingly good doctor. : r/ChatGPT
Important Reminder: While ChatGPT can offer insights and support, it is not a licensed mental health professional. It’s essential to consult with qualified healthcare providers for diagnosis and treatment of mental health conditions. Use AI tools as supplementary resources and always approach their suggestions with critical thinking and discernment.
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