u/LaniakeaResident

Hi everyone! A while ago I posted here about a free educational spine assessment tool that my team and I had built. Thousands of people from this Reddit community ended up trying it, and we received a lot of genuinely useful feedback from this community.

Based on that feedback, we decided to rebuild it into a much more complete free web app: app.SpineSense.ai

TL;DR: I am a fellowship-trained complex spine surgeon (neurosurgeon). Ask me anything about your spine related issues, I will do my best to give you general advice and answer your questions. Also, my team and I built a free educational spine assessment for people dealing with back pain, lower back pain, neck pain, sciatica, pain going into an arm or leg, numbness, tingling, weakness, or a confusing MRI or CT report. You can describe your symptoms in your own words, upload your spine-related records, complete an adaptive questionnaire, receive a plain-language analysis, and download an organized PDF summary to take to your doctor.

We also built a feature called MiScribe that is designed to be your automated note taking tool during your spine specialist appointment. It will help you capture (record) and organize what was discussed during your medical appointments, so you can remember what each doctor said and compare different treatment recommendations.

This is community led project. There is no trial or credit card. It is simply just free. However, it is also not medical advice and obviously does not replace being evaluated by a medical professional. The platform is HIPAA compliant, your information is encrypted, and access is strictly controlled. Your information is not made public. I also do not personally review what you enter unless you contact us for help and specifically authorize us/me to access it.

Why we built this

One of the biggest problems I see in spine care is that patients often have symptoms, imaging reports, physical therapy notes, injections, and years of medical history scattered across different portals and offices. Then they finally get an appointment and have 15 minutes to explain everything from the beginning.

People also frequently do not know what type of specialist they should see. Should they start with their primary care doctor, physical therapy, pain management, neurology, or a spine surgeon? Is the MRI finding actually related to the symptoms, or is it something commonly seen in people without pain?

The purpose of SpineSense is to help you organize your story, better understand the possibilities, recognize concerning symptoms, and have a more productive conversation with the appropriate medical professional.

It may be useful whether you are dealing with lower back pain, neck pain, sciatica or radiculopathy, a herniated or bulging disc, spinal stenosis, degenerative disc disease, scoliosis, spondylolisthesis, symptoms after a prior spine procedure, or simply an MRI report that is full of terminology nobody has clearly explained to you.

How it works

1. Tell your spine story

You can describe what has been happening in as much detail as you want by speaking naturally into the microphone or typing it into a text box.

Tell it the same way you would explain it to a doctor: where the pain started, where it travels, what makes it better or worse, what treatments you have already tried, and how it is affecting your life.

Your voice recording is not saved. It is transcribed into text so the information can be incorporated into your assessment.

2. Upload your spine-related records

You can upload PDFs or pictures of MRI reports, CT reports, clinic notes, EMG reports, physical therapy notes, operative reports, or other documents that may be relevant. You can also paste text directly from MyChart or another patient portal.

The app organizes the important findings and gives you a plain-language explanation of the medical terminology.

This is intended primarily for written reports and medical records. It is not a substitute for having the actual MRI or CT images interpreted by a qualified clinician.

3. Complete the adaptive questionnaire

The questionnaire is modeled after the history a thorough spine specialist would take during an appointment. It asks about the location and character of your symptoms, neurologic symptoms, function, previous treatment, and the positive and negative findings that help narrow down what may be occurring.

The questions change based on your previous answers. If none of the available choices fully describes your situation, there is an “add details” option where you can provide your own context.

The questionnaire typically takes around 8–12 minutes. Its thorough on purpose. Once the first phase is complete, the app may generate up to 10 additional questions specifically based on your story, uploaded records, and previous responses.

We have also built in red-flag detection. If the app identifies symptoms that may require urgent medical attention, such as sudden weakness or loss of bladder control, it will stop the assessment and tell you to seek urgent evaluation.

4. Review your results

After you finish, the app performs a deeper analysis of everything you provided. This part generally takes around 1–2 minutes.

Your dashboard then gives you a plain-language summary of your overall clinical picture, possible explanations for your symptoms, which findings appear to fit together, questions you may want to ask your doctor, and what type of specialist may be most appropriate.

It can also generate an organized PDF containing your history, symptoms, prior treatment, uploaded findings, and important questions. You can print it or take it with you to an appointment so you do not have to rely entirely on memory while trying to explain several years of spine care.

5. Track the symptoms that actually matter

One of the features we put a lot of thought into is the symptom tracking system. Instead of simply asking you to manually choose a generic list of symptoms, the app reviews your assessment and identifies which symptoms are likely to be the most clinically important to follow over time.

7. Use MiScribe to remember and compare your appointments

We also built a feature we are calling MiScribe, which will be live in 1-2 weeks. And I think this might be the best part for you guys!

Doctors now increasingly have access to AI scribes that listen during a medical appointment and create an organized clinical note for them. We thought patients should have something similar.

MiScribe allows you to capture the conversation from a medical appointment and generate an organized summary of what was discussed. It can help you remember the doctor’s explanation, the treatment options that were presented, what the next steps are, and any questions that still need to be answered.

Over time, it also gives you a way to compare and contrast the treatment plans and strategies discussed during different visits. For example, you may be able to see that one surgeon recommended continued nonoperative treatment, another recommended a decompression, and another discussed a fusion and more importantly, review the reasoning each person gave.

You can also use it simply as a note-taking tool so you do not leave the office and realize later that you forgot half of what the doctor said.

Please make sure your clinician knows you would like to use the recording feature and agrees before recording any appointment.

8. Keep everything organized

The dashboard gives you one place to organize your spine-related records, assessment results, symptom history, visit summaries, and downloaded reports.

You can also search for relevant spine surgeons, pain management physicians, and physical therapists and, when you choose, share an organized assessment report with a provider.

A few final disclaimers:

We are still a small team, and the app remains a work in progress. Something may occasionally not work correctly, and the analysis can be wrong. Please do not use it to ignore new or worsening symptoms, delay emergency care, or override the recommendations of a clinician who has actually evaluated you.

Nothing generated by the app is medical advice. It is an educational and organizational tool designed to help you better understand your situation, keep track of meaningful changes, and have more informed conversations with your doctors.

Here is the link again: app.SpineSense.ai

If you try it, I would genuinely like to know what it understood correctly, what it missed, where anything was confusing, and what would make the assessment, symptom tracker, MiScribe summaries, or final PDF more useful/helpful during real medical appointments.

I would prefer that feedback here in the comments when possible so other people can see the discussion as well. But feel free to DM me, or shoot me an email at info@spinesense.ai.

While I am here: I am also happy to answer general questions about back pain, neck pain, sciatica, spine MRI terminology, symptom tracking, getting a second opinion, and the roles of different spine specialists. I cannot diagnose an individual case or recommend a procedure based only on a Reddit comment or an MRI report, but I am happy to provide general educational information.