placebo

[Guest guest]

Barbara

I agree, I really don't care if it's the placebo effect or " real " . Problem

for me is, after a while the placebo effect kind of wears off. Perhaps

triggered by a day when I wake up with the same old whatever symptom, and

then I say wait a minute, I thought that wasn't happening anymore since I've

been taking " X " . That's when I start to realize that maybe the new " X " isn't

helping after all.

When I first started on Neurontin, I could have sworn that it was helping.

Then the help sort of wore off. Of course, that could be due to habituation,

and I might just need a higher dose. Sigh....this has happened to me so

often that I'm now thoroughly confused, and have more or less stopped

keeping records in this area.

Steve D.

> Date: Wed, 12 Oct 2005 18:27:33 -0500

>

> Subject: RE: creatine question

>

> Improvement of any kind is worth celebrating! Sometimes when I'm trying

> things, I wonder about the placebo effect, but in the long run, if

> something

> helps I don't really care if it's placebo or " real. " I'll take it either

> way. :-)

>

> Barbara

[Guest guest]

Steve,

Absolutely. Placebo is notoriously fickle and tends to disappear with time,

whereas the real thing is more likely to be loyal and hang around for good.

That's what the scientists say anyway and it fits my experience. If the true

outcome of a given trial is ambiguous and I'm not sure one way or the other,

I back off and try again, maybe several times to see if I get the same

response each time. I give the treatment an opportunity to persuade me that

it's worth my time and effort.

In lieu of designing my own double-blind trials, which I can't do, of

course, but would in a more perfect world, I've basically got three tools:

observation, interpretation and time. Well, maybe throw in intuition, but

that probably fits under interpretation. I need lots and lots of all of them

to understand how to help myself, but especially lots of time. Right now, it

appears that adding daytime formula to my tube is helping, but what's a

month or two of improvement? The disease can manage that on its own

sometimes, so if in six months or a year I still see more stability, I'll

declare that it works and feel sure I'm speaking the truth. Too many times

the disease has made a liar out of me, much to my chagrin. Regardless, isn't

it fascinating to observe the potential of hope. I've come to believe that

hope too has amazing medicinal power and should never be underestimated.

Take care,

Barbara

> Barbara

>

> I agree, I really don't care if it's the placebo effect or " real " . Problem

> for me is, after a while the placebo effect kind of wears off. Perhaps

> triggered by a day when I wake up with the same old whatever symptom, and

> then I say wait a minute, I thought that wasn't happening anymore since

I've

> been taking " X " . That's when I start to realize that maybe the new " X "

isn't

> helping after all.

>

> When I first started on Neurontin, I could have sworn that it was helping.

> Then the help sort of wore off. Of course, that could be due to

habituation,

> and I might just need a higher dose. Sigh....this has happened to me so

> often that I'm now thoroughly confused, and have more or less stopped

> keeping records in this area.

>

> Steve D.