Thrombosis, Travel, and Tech: A Factor V Leiden Odyssey

In this AI-coauthored and humanly fact-checked article, I’m diving into Factor V Leiden as topic that’s both personal and strangely futuristic.

So buckle up (but not too long!) because it involves blood clots, plane rides, and the way we access information such as medical advice in our new era of AI.

The Factor V Leiden Lowdown

As most don’t know, I carry an inheritable genetic mutation called Factor V Leiden. This means my blood clots quicker than normal, which might have been handy for a woman giving birth back in the caveman days but not so much these days.

Factor V Leiden can become a concern on long-haul flights and day-long road trips, since those blood clots can get a little too enthusiastic when you’re stuck in a cramped seat for hours.

Here’s the kicker: there is no cure but there are anti-coagulants (blood thinners) that can help prevent these clots. However, figuring out when to take a shot of these blood thinners was a real PITA. My own GP had to dig deep to find the magic threshold – apparently, it’s for flights longer than 8 hours. So, how do us regular folks navigate this medical maze?

The Search Engine Struggle

Traditionally, the answer might have been a quick Google search or a desperate tweet into the void, like: “Hey Twitterverse, anyone know how long a flight is too long for my Factor V Leiden?” But let’s be honest, the internet can be a messy place for medical advice (yes, I appreciate the irony). Trustworthy sources can be buried under a pile of clickbait, and even doctors sometimes disagree.

Enter the Age of ELF and Vaia

This is where things get exciting. Imagine a future where you don’t have to wrestle with search engines or guess at medical advice. You simply ask your personal AI like an Electronic Life Facilitator (ELF) or Virtual AI Assistant a question like:

Hey Vaia, should I take blood clot medication for my 10-hour flight to Arizona?

The Vaia, powered by a massive language model trained on mountains of medical data and research, would then do its thing. It might access its own internal knowledge or offload the query to a specialized medical AI. The result? A clear, concise, and fact-checked answer about your specific situation with Factor V Leiden and long flights. Oh, and your AI should answer:

🤖💬Yes, take your shot of blood thinners shortly before liftoff.

AI’s Interconnected Network as Knowledge Hub

Imagine a future where personal AIs or Vaia’s aren’t just isolated entities, but interconnected nodes in a vast network of knowledge sharing. A protocol would ensure that these AI assistants can securely share and access vital, fact-checked information, transcending platform boundaries. This could mean that your Vaia, powered for exampled by Google Gemini, could tap into data from an AI assistant developed by competitors like OpenAI, Meta or Apple, creating a more comprehensive and reliable knowledge base. This vision harkens back to the founding principles of these tech giants, when their missions were rooted in making information accessible and empowering individuals.

The Future is (Almost) Here

Now, this vision might seem a bit futuristic, but the building blocks are already in place. Large language models like Google’s Gemini and OpenAI’s ChatGPT are constantly evolving, and specialized AI assistants are popping up all over the place. It’s not a stretch to imagine a future where getting reliable medical information is as easy as asking your pocket AI.

Here’s the important caveat: even with amazing AI, human expertise will still be crucial. A Vaia can’t replace a doctor’s personalized assessment and treatment plan. But it can be a powerful tool for navigating the medical information jungle, empowering us to make informed decisions about our health.

⚠️ 𝗗𝗜𝗦𝗖𝗟𝗔𝗜𝗠𝗘𝗥 🦾 AI prompts, and requested ⛑️(medical) resources

While (A)I can provide information on Factor V Leiden, we are NOT medical professionals. It’s crucial to consult with a healthcare provider for accurate diagnosis and treatment.

So, if you’re curious about Factor V Leiden or have any questions about long flights, don’t strictly rely on my post or random tweets. Talk to your doctor! They’re the real heroes in this story (and hopefully, your Vaia of the future will be able to schedule those appointments for you too!).

𝗣𝗥𝗢𝗠𝗣𝗧: click to see my prompt to Google Gemini 🤖

For this post I have used Google Gemini for a change. You can read my entire conversation with Gemini here including my original prompt:

Write an entire blog post in the style of my posts at https://mikevz.nl with a small update on my thoughts on sharing useful information in the age of AI. For example, I have a genetic mutation called “Factor V Leiden” V as in “five” so “Factor five” which is a gen that mutated evolutionary to make blood to clot quicker in order to prevent death, primarily for a woman giving birth. I have been told that the army is using this gen for soldiers to have their blood clot quicker when getting shot for better survival rates. Anyway, there’s a certain medicine that somebody with this gen needs to take when on long trips, like a long flight or car trip. But even my GP had to research extensively to find information how the threshold of how many hours of flight before taking that medicine shot. Turns out to be more than 8 hours. Now, as a common citizen how would I share this crucial information? I could send a tweet on Twitter, eh, X I mean 🙂 Or I can write a blogpost as I am instructing you to do know. But in my vision, within a decade people will not use traditional search engines anymore for these kinds of questions; they would ask their AI, and most likely a personal AI or a Vaia I like to call it (virtual ai assistant) which would either be able to use its own large language model trained on billions of texts, books, videos, and/or offload it to a specialized AI that will return the correct (fact checked) answer back to the “Vaia”

𝗥𝗘𝗦𝗢𝗨𝗥𝗖𝗘𝗦: AI did not provide direct links to its used (re)sources

While coauthoring this post together with Google Gemini, I asked this AI for the sources it used to draft this content. I also used the ‘double-check with Google’ feature but without any results. This was its literal answer:

Here are some general resources that I [Gemini] likely referenced when drafting the blog post:

• Medical Databases: PubMed, Google Scholar, and other academic databases for peer-reviewed research articles on Factor V Leiden.
• Health Organizations: The Mayo Clinic, National Institutes of Health (NIH), and other reputable health organizations for patient information and guidelines.
• Genetic Testing Companies: Websites that provide information about Factor V Leiden testing and genetic mutations.

Please note: [Gemini] cannot provide specific sources without knowing the exact details of the research [it] used. If you have any concerns or require more in-depth information, I recommend consulting with a healthcare professional or conducting your own research using the resources mentioned above.

So, what do you think, are we on the verge of a medical AI revolution?