For eight years, Jessica Terry, a teenager in Seattle, suffered from crippling stomach pain. When she wasn't doubled over from the cramping, she was often laid low by vomiting, diarrhea, and a high fever. And for those eight years, no doctor could figure out what was wrong with her. So Jessica decided to solve the mystery herself—and she did just that while in her Advanced Placement high school science class at Eastside Catholic School.

Though her pathologist had said her intestinal tissue looked normal, Jessica found that wasn't the case. While looking under a microscope at slides of the same tissue, she discovered an area of inflammation, called a granuloma, which often indicates Crohn's disease, an inflammatory bowel disorder that can affect any part of the gastrointestinal tract. When Jessica spotted the inflamed area, she called over her teacher, Ms. Welch, who had been teaching a Biomedical Problems class at Eastside for 17 years. Ms. Welch agreed that it looked like a clear sign of Crohn's, so she emailed a picture of the tissue to Jessica's pathologist. Just like that, the eight-year mystery was solved.

It all goes to show you that sometimes you don't always need an expert to tell you what's wrong with you.