6 ms·

yes and perhaps some placebo effects activate stored immunological responses.

DoreenMichele 5y ago
My understanding is sugar pills are commonly used as a placebo. Sugar helps take the edge off pain, though it doesn't work the same as a pain killer. People going through withdrawal tend to be sugar fiends. So I'm a bit skeptical of the assumption that "placebos do absolutely nothing, medically speaking" to begin with. (Not dismissing your suggestion here.)
- cpncrunch 5y ago
  Placebos generally aren't sugar pills, unless there is sugar in the medication itself (which I don't think is generally the case). They are designed to be impossible to tell apart from the active medication. The pain-killing effect has nothing to do with sugar.
  - DoreenMichele 5y ago
    A placebo is a substance or treatment which is designed to have no therapeutic value. Common placebos include inert tablets (like sugar pills)... https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Placebo https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Placebo Not to say Wikipedia is infallible. I'm sure it's not. Just checking how clueless I am and the internet suggests my understanding is "common knowledge." Perhaps you can share more of your knowledge about what placebo pills typically contain and enlighten us? (Citations welcome should you choose to share.)
    - cpncrunch 5y ago
      Actually, I did some searching and it seems that most RCTs don't actually list the contents of the placebo pill. I found this article which describes the problem: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-whats-placebo-idUSTRE69H51L20101018 https://www.reuters.com/article/us-whats-placebo-idUSTRE69H5...
      - DoreenMichele 5y ago
        Thank you. Very enlightening and happily agrees with both your statements (that they usually aren't sugar pills) and mine (that placebos themselves may have medical impact).
    - freeest-will 5y ago
      > For example, in the COVID-19 vaccine developed by the University of Oxford, the control group receives a meningitis and septicaemia vaccine as a placebo. > The benefit of using an actual vaccine as the placebo control is that it will cause a similar reaction at the site of the injection as the COVID-19 vaccine, such as muscle pain and soreness. This prevents patients from knowing whether they are getting the placebo or the real treatment. https://theconversation.com/coronavirus-vaccine-why-its-important-to-know-whats-in-the-placebo-146365 https://theconversation.com/coronavirus-vaccine-why-its-impo...
      - DoreenMichele 5y ago
        Thank you.
- maxerickson 5y ago
  A few hundred milligrams bound in a pill is probably different than a bowl of ice cream or bar of chocolate.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
cpncrunch 5y ago
I think more technically it is nocebo effects which cause the (bad) immune response, whereas the placebo effect cancels or at least ameliorates it. Paul Garner has described how worry about covid helped to maintain his long-covid / ME/CFS symptoms, and he was finally able to recover after addressing those fears: https://blogs.bmj.com/bmj/2021/01/25/paul-garner-on-his-recovery-from-long-covid/ https://blogs.bmj.com/bmj/2021/01/25/paul-garner-on-his-reco... I managed to fully recover from ME/CFS myself 20 years ago with a similar route (with no symptoms since). In my case I don't think there was any significant worry about the illness itself, it was more pre-existing life stressors that I had to deal with, with the viral infection being the final straw for my body.
- inter_netuser 5y ago
  How did you do to recover exactly?
  - cpncrunch 5y ago
    Happy to discuss further in private. See my profile.
    - inter_netuser 5y ago
      Sent
- dham 5y ago
  I think that some people have post viral mental disorders. Or just general mental problems after going through anything out of the ordinary with their body. After going through Thyroid Cancer I generally don't give two thoughts about much of anything, while people at work are 25 years old and getting boosters for Covid. Some kind of mental thing going on here. One thing I also found out during this pandemic is people generally don't get sick which was surprising to me since I have 2 kids and have generally been sick with a cold every 2 to 3 months for a decade. Maybe that's why Covid wasn't that bad for me? Although it did put me on my ass for 2 days.
crehn 5y ago
Placebo is such an interesting phenomenon. I had a certain physical pain difficult to describe that I could’ve sworn to have felt, but after addressing my perspective I’ve no longer had any such symptoms. Not sure if related, but I still don’t understand it.
- newby 5y ago
  > after addressing my perspective Could you please elaborate on that?
  - lloeki 5y ago
    (don't want to put words in GP's mouth, this is my interpretation of it, and my experience) I do skateboarding and had multiple ankle sprains. What happens every single time is that the wound heals, physiotherapy proceeds and strengthens the whole joint system, and then I'm left with an ankle that is still in pain when it should not physically be anymore since it has fully recovered. That is, until I literally "decide" the remaining pain is a construct of my mind, and then the pain vanishes overnight, and the ankle that I felt brittle and was scared to use to its full extend suddenly feels as strong and stable as ever, if not more.
    - vkk8 5y ago
      In the (power)lifting scene, I have really enjoyed the articles by Austin Baraki et al. from Barbell Medicine on pains and aches in the context of physical activities. See for example https://startingstrength.com/article/aches-and-pains https://startingstrength.com/article/aches-and-pains or https://www.barbellmedicine.com/blog/the-barbell-medicine-guide-to-tendinopathy/ https://www.barbellmedicine.com/blog/the-barbell-medicine-gu... In a nutshell, the idea that there's a straightforward causal link between something being physically broken in your body and you feeling pain is simply wrong. Sometimes people feel pain in various body parts without any detectable physical changes and sometimes classical training injuries, like herniated spinal disks, can be found by medical imaging without the person feeling any pain at all. Also the common advice to rest until the pain subsides is often - but no always - wrong; there are plenty of anecdotes of people with completely fucked up knees or ankles or back starting heavy powerlifting program and suddenly healing from their injuries or at least learning to use their body in such a way that the injuries don't bother them anymore.
dr_dshiv 5y ago
Did you see Ross Douthat’s NYT piece on using EMF vibrations to cure his Lyme disease? Using a Rife machine. He knows it doesn’t work but still thinks it works.

My understanding is sugar pills are commonly used as a placebo. Sugar helps take the edge off pain, though it doesn't work the same as a pain killer. People going through withdrawal tend to be sugar fiends. So I'm a bit skeptical of the assumption that "placebos do absolutely nothing, medically speaking" to begin with. (Not dismissing your suggestion here.)

cpncrunch 5y ago
Placebos generally aren't sugar pills, unless there is sugar in the medication itself (which I don't think is generally the case). They are designed to be impossible to tell apart from the active medication. The pain-killing effect has nothing to do with sugar.
- DoreenMichele 5y ago
  A placebo is a substance or treatment which is designed to have no therapeutic value. Common placebos include inert tablets (like sugar pills)... https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Placebo https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Placebo Not to say Wikipedia is infallible. I'm sure it's not. Just checking how clueless I am and the internet suggests my understanding is "common knowledge." Perhaps you can share more of your knowledge about what placebo pills typically contain and enlighten us? (Citations welcome should you choose to share.)
  - cpncrunch 5y ago
    Actually, I did some searching and it seems that most RCTs don't actually list the contents of the placebo pill. I found this article which describes the problem: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-whats-placebo-idUSTRE69H51L20101018 https://www.reuters.com/article/us-whats-placebo-idUSTRE69H5...
    - DoreenMichele 5y ago
      Thank you. Very enlightening and happily agrees with both your statements (that they usually aren't sugar pills) and mine (that placebos themselves may have medical impact).
  - freeest-will 5y ago
    > For example, in the COVID-19 vaccine developed by the University of Oxford, the control group receives a meningitis and septicaemia vaccine as a placebo. > The benefit of using an actual vaccine as the placebo control is that it will cause a similar reaction at the site of the injection as the COVID-19 vaccine, such as muscle pain and soreness. This prevents patients from knowing whether they are getting the placebo or the real treatment. https://theconversation.com/coronavirus-vaccine-why-its-important-to-know-whats-in-the-placebo-146365 https://theconversation.com/coronavirus-vaccine-why-its-impo...
    - DoreenMichele 5y ago
      Thank you.
maxerickson 5y ago
A few hundred milligrams bound in a pill is probably different than a bowl of ice cream or bar of chocolate.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]

cpncrunch 5y ago

I think more technically it is nocebo effects which cause the (bad) immune response, whereas the placebo effect cancels or at least ameliorates it. Paul Garner has described how worry about covid helped to maintain his long-covid / ME/CFS symptoms, and he was finally able to recover after addressing those fears: https://blogs.bmj.com/bmj/2021/01/25/paul-garner-on-his-recovery-from-long-covid/ https://blogs.bmj.com/bmj/2021/01/25/paul-garner-on-his-reco... I managed to fully recover from ME/CFS myself 20 years ago with a similar route (with no symptoms since). In my case I don't think there was any significant worry about the illness itself, it was more pre-existing life stressors that I had to deal with, with the viral infection being the final straw for my body.

inter_netuser 5y ago
How did you do to recover exactly?
- cpncrunch 5y ago
  Happy to discuss further in private. See my profile.
  - inter_netuser 5y ago
    Sent
dham 5y ago
I think that some people have post viral mental disorders. Or just general mental problems after going through anything out of the ordinary with their body. After going through Thyroid Cancer I generally don't give two thoughts about much of anything, while people at work are 25 years old and getting boosters for Covid. Some kind of mental thing going on here. One thing I also found out during this pandemic is people generally don't get sick which was surprising to me since I have 2 kids and have generally been sick with a cold every 2 to 3 months for a decade. Maybe that's why Covid wasn't that bad for me? Although it did put me on my ass for 2 days.

crehn 5y ago

Placebo is such an interesting phenomenon. I had a certain physical pain difficult to describe that I could’ve sworn to have felt, but after addressing my perspective I’ve no longer had any such symptoms. Not sure if related, but I still don’t understand it.

newby 5y ago
> after addressing my perspective Could you please elaborate on that?
- lloeki 5y ago
  (don't want to put words in GP's mouth, this is my interpretation of it, and my experience) I do skateboarding and had multiple ankle sprains. What happens every single time is that the wound heals, physiotherapy proceeds and strengthens the whole joint system, and then I'm left with an ankle that is still in pain when it should not physically be anymore since it has fully recovered. That is, until I literally "decide" the remaining pain is a construct of my mind, and then the pain vanishes overnight, and the ankle that I felt brittle and was scared to use to its full extend suddenly feels as strong and stable as ever, if not more.
  - vkk8 5y ago
    In the (power)lifting scene, I have really enjoyed the articles by Austin Baraki et al. from Barbell Medicine on pains and aches in the context of physical activities. See for example https://startingstrength.com/article/aches-and-pains https://startingstrength.com/article/aches-and-pains or https://www.barbellmedicine.com/blog/the-barbell-medicine-guide-to-tendinopathy/ https://www.barbellmedicine.com/blog/the-barbell-medicine-gu... In a nutshell, the idea that there's a straightforward causal link between something being physically broken in your body and you feeling pain is simply wrong. Sometimes people feel pain in various body parts without any detectable physical changes and sometimes classical training injuries, like herniated spinal disks, can be found by medical imaging without the person feeling any pain at all. Also the common advice to rest until the pain subsides is often - but no always - wrong; there are plenty of anecdotes of people with completely fucked up knees or ankles or back starting heavy powerlifting program and suddenly healing from their injuries or at least learning to use their body in such a way that the injuries don't bother them anymore.

dr_dshiv 5y ago

Did you see Ross Douthat’s NYT piece on using EMF vibrations to cure his Lyme disease? Using a Rife machine. He knows it doesn’t work but still thinks it works.