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I know a lady who was managing a convenience store / pharmacy who eventually quit and became a reiki healer. Prior to this kind of study any real scientist wou

I know a lady who was managing a convenience store / pharmacy who eventually quit and became a reiki healer. Prior to this kind of study any real scientist would know it's total garbage. But somehow she makes a living doing it. Is it all duping? I suspected not. In my mind what people who paid her were getting was something that they almost universally can't get inside the traditional medicine system here in the US at least, someone who cares. Most encounters with doctors here in the US are 10 minutes or less at least for an office visit. If you have a lot of symptoms or back-story or whatever the doc might cut you off and ask questions and keep directing the conversation rather than hear you out. That might be an efficient use of their time, but it's not good for the placebo effect to work because part of that seems to be caring, wanting the patient to get better, doing things (even things we know won't work) to help. This lady has I think only hour long appointments which are totally unheard of in the traditional system. It's not surprising that if the placebo effect is real that seeing someone who can really only care (or at least pretend to) could be effective.

tathougies 9y ago
Auto immune diseases are all untreatable and severely reduce quality of life in some cases. One thing proven to slow their progress is stress reduction. As you can imagine, being less stressed is really hard when you have a chronic illness. This is exacerbated by doctors ignoring you. Having anyone spend an hour to help you in any way is such a relief. I wouldn't be surprised if this played a large role. As another example, my wife and I have had six miscarriages. We're 25 and both healthy and the many doctors we've seen agree. Well if the doctors don't have a diagnosis, they don't wanna see you. When it comes to recurrent miscarriage, there is no treatment. They suspect there are likely auto immune diseases we don't know about. Indeed, this seems likely. Most studies on potential treatments cannot be reliably replicated. The only thing that has been shown to reduce miscarriage risk in future pregnancies is tender loving care-- having a doctor who will talk with you for hours whenever you want, and being taken care of. So now we see a new matronly obstetrician. She's a bit quirky but we feel like she won't abandon us like the other doctors did. Her appointments are multiple hours long, and she's happy being paged in the middle of the night when we've found out we're pregnant again. At 5 am when you find out you're pregnant after five miscarriages, nothing is more calming than a soothing voice on the telephone This doctor has also encouraged us to seek out alternate practitioners, like acupuncturists and massage. She doesn't believe in their treatments working per se (she's an md and is happy providing real treatments), but I think she understands they these practitioners will at least make you feel calm and taken care of. Whereas I used to laugh at people who would see them before, I get it now. When you have a medical condition that is chronic and there's no end in sight and no cure available, you need a friend more than a doctor, and unfortunately, there's not much overlap between the two
- arkades 9y ago
  > Auto immune diseases are all untreatable I think you mean "incurable." Not untreatable. Otherwise, I sure wasted a lot of time memorizing immune modulators and autoimmune disease treatment protocols for my board exams. And yes, doctors' job is diagnosis and treatment. If for whatever reason you're not a candidate for those two things, they have nothing to do for you. This is like complaining your IT guy isn't there to support you when your PC gets stolen by a house invasion. That's not what that relationship is.
  - MegaButts 9y ago
    You've really captured the essence of the pretentious doctor with this comment. Bravo.
    - whatshisface 9y ago
      Honestly, I'd prefer a doctor that could look at me and say "Sorry, but you shouldn't buy any more of my time." Being able to say when you can't do any more is probably the antithesis of arrogant doctors - what you really have to watch out for is a pseudo-quack that will send you off on increasingly strong medications with zero-approaching success rates without telling you!
      - arkades 9y ago
        He has half a point: my first comment was more glib than it needed to be. But, yes, docs who take your money to pat you on the head rather than admit they can't help you aren't doing you any favors. Most docs are more ethical than that (and then get lambasted for "not wanting anything to do with you if they can't treat or diagnose you.")
      - deleted 9y ago
        [deleted]
  - tathougies 9y ago
    A doctor's job is to restore health, using whatever mechanisms they can. In the case of miscarriage, tender loving care is literally the best treatment available, as confirmed by numerous studies. Unfortunately, most doctors are basically giant hash tables mapping conditions to prescription drugs, sorted on the kickbacks you get from pharma companies. My dad was in pharmaceutical sales for two plus decades -- I know all the tricks.
adrianm 9y ago
If your primary care physician can only spend ten minutes with you max, find a new doctor. That's not acceptable.
- yomly 9y ago
  In the UK, an NHS GP gets about 20 minutes per patient including admin time for prescription + updating medical records.
kyleschiller 9y ago
The huge problem with this is that patients might choose it over medicine that does work. See Steve Jobs.
mattkrause 9y ago
Drug trials for mood disorders (etc) often show a really strong placebo effect, and I've heard some speculation that this happens for a similar reason. People running the trial really want you to complete the study. The payments are structured to encourage this, but the staff also try to be warm and friendly to encourage you to come back, and this (along with getting out of the house and checking something off a to-do list), helps lift people's mood.
TheSpiceIsLife 9y ago
I am Reiki Level 1 attuned. In my opinion the Reiki qualifications are mostly nonsense. What makes a difference is the other things you've mentioned: the sympathetic ear of someone who we have faith and trust in. Reiki is instutionalised caring. Something else I believe is extraordinarily powerful is touch, and Reiki is one method formalising touch with professional intention. I think this is a good thing. Doctors here in Australia are the same. 10 minute back to back appoints all week long. Back of the envelope calculation: my mechanic has spent more time with my car this year alone than I have spend with doctors my life to date. Fairly sure the mammalian bodies vastly more complicated than cars. On a side note, my partner and I recently raised a dog, she's now 16 months old. I've currently got a mild respiratory tract infection which is worse for cold air and at night so I'm sleeping in the lounge room with the heat pump turned up so as not to disturb my partner with my coughing fits. The dog has been laying right up against me the whole night with her head resting on my arm or chest and has not made one complaint. When I get up, for whatever reason, she sits and watches me till I get back. She's warm, tolerant to a fault, never complains, misses us, always happy to see us. Dogs are the ultimate touch-healers. Just having some by your side whenever you need it, someone to play with whenever you want, is, in my experience, very powerful.

tathougies 9y ago

Auto immune diseases are all untreatable and severely reduce quality of life in some cases. One thing proven to slow their progress is stress reduction. As you can imagine, being less stressed is really hard when you have a chronic illness. This is exacerbated by doctors ignoring you. Having anyone spend an hour to help you in any way is such a relief. I wouldn't be surprised if this played a large role. As another example, my wife and I have had six miscarriages. We're 25 and both healthy and the many doctors we've seen agree. Well if the doctors don't have a diagnosis, they don't wanna see you. When it comes to recurrent miscarriage, there is no treatment. They suspect there are likely auto immune diseases we don't know about. Indeed, this seems likely. Most studies on potential treatments cannot be reliably replicated. The only thing that has been shown to reduce miscarriage risk in future pregnancies is tender loving care-- having a doctor who will talk with you for hours whenever you want, and being taken care of. So now we see a new matronly obstetrician. She's a bit quirky but we feel like she won't abandon us like the other doctors did. Her appointments are multiple hours long, and she's happy being paged in the middle of the night when we've found out we're pregnant again. At 5 am when you find out you're pregnant after five miscarriages, nothing is more calming than a soothing voice on the telephone This doctor has also encouraged us to seek out alternate practitioners, like acupuncturists and massage. She doesn't believe in their treatments working per se (she's an md and is happy providing real treatments), but I think she understands they these practitioners will at least make you feel calm and taken care of. Whereas I used to laugh at people who would see them before, I get it now. When you have a medical condition that is chronic and there's no end in sight and no cure available, you need a friend more than a doctor, and unfortunately, there's not much overlap between the two

arkades 9y ago
> Auto immune diseases are all untreatable I think you mean "incurable." Not untreatable. Otherwise, I sure wasted a lot of time memorizing immune modulators and autoimmune disease treatment protocols for my board exams. And yes, doctors' job is diagnosis and treatment. If for whatever reason you're not a candidate for those two things, they have nothing to do for you. This is like complaining your IT guy isn't there to support you when your PC gets stolen by a house invasion. That's not what that relationship is.
- MegaButts 9y ago
  You've really captured the essence of the pretentious doctor with this comment. Bravo.
  - whatshisface 9y ago
    Honestly, I'd prefer a doctor that could look at me and say "Sorry, but you shouldn't buy any more of my time." Being able to say when you can't do any more is probably the antithesis of arrogant doctors - what you really have to watch out for is a pseudo-quack that will send you off on increasingly strong medications with zero-approaching success rates without telling you!
    - arkades 9y ago
      He has half a point: my first comment was more glib than it needed to be. But, yes, docs who take your money to pat you on the head rather than admit they can't help you aren't doing you any favors. Most docs are more ethical than that (and then get lambasted for "not wanting anything to do with you if they can't treat or diagnose you.")
    - deleted 9y ago
      [deleted]
- tathougies 9y ago
  A doctor's job is to restore health, using whatever mechanisms they can. In the case of miscarriage, tender loving care is literally the best treatment available, as confirmed by numerous studies. Unfortunately, most doctors are basically giant hash tables mapping conditions to prescription drugs, sorted on the kickbacks you get from pharma companies. My dad was in pharmaceutical sales for two plus decades -- I know all the tricks.

adrianm 9y ago

If your primary care physician can only spend ten minutes with you max, find a new doctor. That's not acceptable.

yomly 9y ago
In the UK, an NHS GP gets about 20 minutes per patient including admin time for prescription + updating medical records.

kyleschiller 9y ago

The huge problem with this is that patients might choose it over medicine that does work. See Steve Jobs.

mattkrause 9y ago

Drug trials for mood disorders (etc) often show a really strong placebo effect, and I've heard some speculation that this happens for a similar reason. People running the trial really want you to complete the study. The payments are structured to encourage this, but the staff also try to be warm and friendly to encourage you to come back, and this (along with getting out of the house and checking something off a to-do list), helps lift people's mood.

TheSpiceIsLife 9y ago

I am Reiki Level 1 attuned. In my opinion the Reiki qualifications are mostly nonsense. What makes a difference is the other things you've mentioned: the sympathetic ear of someone who we have faith and trust in. Reiki is instutionalised caring. Something else I believe is extraordinarily powerful is touch, and Reiki is one method formalising touch with professional intention. I think this is a good thing. Doctors here in Australia are the same. 10 minute back to back appoints all week long. Back of the envelope calculation: my mechanic has spent more time with my car this year alone than I have spend with doctors my life to date. Fairly sure the mammalian bodies vastly more complicated than cars. On a side note, my partner and I recently raised a dog, she's now 16 months old. I've currently got a mild respiratory tract infection which is worse for cold air and at night so I'm sleeping in the lounge room with the heat pump turned up so as not to disturb my partner with my coughing fits. The dog has been laying right up against me the whole night with her head resting on my arm or chest and has not made one complaint. When I get up, for whatever reason, she sits and watches me till I get back. She's warm, tolerant to a fault, never complains, misses us, always happy to see us. Dogs are the ultimate touch-healers. Just having some by your side whenever you need it, someone to play with whenever you want, is, in my experience, very powerful.