4 ms·

My understanding is that old school physicians (maybe about 100 years ago or more) didn't consider themselves the agent of healing, but rather, assistants in th

by hosh 5y ago

My understanding is that old school physicians (maybe about 100 years ago or more) didn't consider themselves the agent of healing, but rather, assistants in the healing process. It was a part of the care for their patients, helping them with the continued will to live. Our modern medicine with its metrics measures clinical outcomes as if consciousness plays no part in outcomes, and our healthcare policies are all formed around this. The other questions that came to mind ... at the risk of starting up something controversial: - How much, if any, of the covid-19 deaths are co-morbid with dysexistential syndrome? - And how much of the perceived risks to vaccination and boosters with covid-19 lead to psychogenic death? - How much does the will to survive play in both effects from covid-19 and taking vaccines?

shadowgovt 5y ago
I think you're catching downvotes because you touched a current third rail, but you're raising valid points regarding things we already know about the interaction between human cognitive function and health. If I inject harmless saline into your veins and tell you it's poison and will slowly kill you, you will have a physiological negative reaction if you believe me, even though the saline does nothing to change your biochemistry except some minor dilution. Your firm belief will trigger (via poorly understood subconscious processes) autonomous responses that will fight an attack on your system that isn't there. It's extremely unlikely you'll die from something like that, but we've known about the placebo effect for a while now, and the nocibo effect (a negative reaction because the patient believes the treatment causes harm) is also demonstrated in the literature. I don't doubt that some of the public reports of negative effects from the vaccine are psychosomatic nocebo effect. This is exactly why raw VAERS statistics are a terrible source of information about the actual biological effect of a vaccine intervention... Without further information, you can't disambiguate negative or positive outcomes caused biologically by the vaccine contents from negative or positive outcomes caused by psychosomatic reaction.
- hosh 5y ago
  Thanks for responding. I havn't caught any downvotes yet (or maybe, they disappeared into upvotes). I put that in there because I know the subject matter might become a downvote magnet ... and if it does, so be it. I'm glad you articulating the topic with more precision than I have. As far as those outcomes goes, I don't think we are adequately tracking this, for covid-19 or for other health concerns. I have zero idea how much of this influences things with covid-19, which is why I am raising these questions. I'm more interested in seeing that these questions are asked, and whatever answers we find, they are what they are. My own personal experience is that "psychosomatic" as a term has been used to dismiss or handwave those poorly understood mechanisms -- not necessarily with covid-19 specifically, but more in general. I'm similar to other DIY body hackers, but I work more along the lines of working with consciousness rather than something like DIY gene therapy. Some of my personal experiments yielded some results, and some have not. It's part of why these questions came up for me.
phasnox 5y ago
Anecdata alert: My wife got covid last year. She was ok until the moment tests confirmed it was covid. She developed shortness of breath and other symptoms. All of those disappeared after reading to her the probabilities of hosp. and dying in her age/condition range.

by hosh 5y ago

shadowgovt 5y ago

I think you're catching downvotes because you touched a current third rail, but you're raising valid points regarding things we already know about the interaction between human cognitive function and health. If I inject harmless saline into your veins and tell you it's poison and will slowly kill you, you will have a physiological negative reaction if you believe me, even though the saline does nothing to change your biochemistry except some minor dilution. Your firm belief will trigger (via poorly understood subconscious processes) autonomous responses that will fight an attack on your system that isn't there. It's extremely unlikely you'll die from something like that, but we've known about the placebo effect for a while now, and the nocibo effect (a negative reaction because the patient believes the treatment causes harm) is also demonstrated in the literature. I don't doubt that some of the public reports of negative effects from the vaccine are psychosomatic nocebo effect. This is exactly why raw VAERS statistics are a terrible source of information about the actual biological effect of a vaccine intervention... Without further information, you can't disambiguate negative or positive outcomes caused biologically by the vaccine contents from negative or positive outcomes caused by psychosomatic reaction.

hosh 5y ago
Thanks for responding. I havn't caught any downvotes yet (or maybe, they disappeared into upvotes). I put that in there because I know the subject matter might become a downvote magnet ... and if it does, so be it. I'm glad you articulating the topic with more precision than I have. As far as those outcomes goes, I don't think we are adequately tracking this, for covid-19 or for other health concerns. I have zero idea how much of this influences things with covid-19, which is why I am raising these questions. I'm more interested in seeing that these questions are asked, and whatever answers we find, they are what they are. My own personal experience is that "psychosomatic" as a term has been used to dismiss or handwave those poorly understood mechanisms -- not necessarily with covid-19 specifically, but more in general. I'm similar to other DIY body hackers, but I work more along the lines of working with consciousness rather than something like DIY gene therapy. Some of my personal experiments yielded some results, and some have not. It's part of why these questions came up for me.

phasnox 5y ago

Anecdata alert: My wife got covid last year. She was ok until the moment tests confirmed it was covid. She developed shortness of breath and other symptoms. All of those disappeared after reading to her the probabilities of hosp. and dying in her age/condition range.