Well I might be joining the peri club!

[goldfinch]

Oakleaf, absolutely the individual's own experience must be considered. Sometime I would like to hear more about issues you have heard from patients that have caused them or you to distrust their medical providers.

I actually have some mixed feelings about use of placebos. I can imagine circumstances where a placebo treatment is innocuous and even a bit helpful. After all, putting a band-aid on a child's skinned knee makes the child feel better. You paid attention to the child. You did something. A good placebo.

However, I do not have mixed feelings about the extensive resources that are poured into types of treatments that do not work, which involve clearly deceptive claims, which are scientifically unsound but are presented as if they were sound, and which have harmed people, such as through misdiagnosis and failure to get treatments that work. I do not want to search for truth in a hall of mirrors, where subjectivity is confused with objectivity.

In the face of lack of evidence for things like acupuncture some practitioners have argued that it is the power of the placebo we need to harness. But the problem is that for objective physiological outcomes there usually is no placebo effect. The effect appears limited to subjective, nonspecific effects. For example, there was a study comparing objective and subjective responses to placebo treatment for asthma, as compared to using an asthma drug. Only the drug improved lung function. But those who had the placebo reported subjective improvements significantly greater than the no treatment group. They felt better but they were not better. The study is discussed here: http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/...os-and-asthma/

So, another risk. You get a treatment you believe in strongly and you feel better. But you are not better.

Well, I'll sign off now as I am starting to ramble and I am tired.