50% of Physicians Giving Out Placebos?

When I was reading a book about business school, I saw that 90% of all statistics are between 40-60 percent accurate and the remainder is just made up to account for standard deviation along with a +/- 3% for a buffer.

[quote]pushmepullme wrote:

My mother was misdiagnosed for over fifteen years with rheumatoid arthritis, depression, it’s all in your head, etc. by the family doctor. She finally started doing research on her own and realized she had a dead thyroid. Something so incredibly common was missed and she lost most of my childhood to it.

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I can identify with this. I saw several doctors who said my myriad problems were probably stress-related, even though I insisted I had almost never felt emotionally stressed in my life. After 2 years of this nonsense, my new doctor ran a thyroid screen that returned what he called, “maybe the worst thyroid numbers (he’d) seen”. Because I am a man, the other doctors never bothered to check my thyroid, even given a family history of auto-immune problems.

DB

I kind of had a similar thing happen to me.

I had a slight speech impediment when I was growing up. End up getting sent to a speech class for years and still had some small problems.

When I was 15 I had to have my wisdom teeth out and after the consultation the doctor went to my mom and said, you know your son is tongue tied right?

It turned out it was a physical impairment all along which speech class had eventually taught me to compensate for. I should have had the simple surgery years before to fix the problem. It would have saved me a tone of getting made fun of.

The fact that the speech pathologist never checked for it cost me problems for years. Fortunately my oral surgeon was competent.

As for ERs, I won’t go to one unless there is no other choice.

My dad was having numbness on one side of his body, and they sent him home telling him to take it easy, no tests, or anything.

He went into his regular doctor the next morning and had to have emergency carotid artery surgery later that day. He was on the verge of a stroke.

I guess we are all human.

My mom got diagnosed with an intestinal infection or something, and weeks later of being in sheer agony her colon blew up.

I have never seen someone so miserable for so long.

Anyway, ill get behind the placebo action in some cases. But I would appreciate if the doctor took appropriate measures first.

IMO, placebos have their pros and cons, and I personally can’t see them being used in medicine, unless it is a study. ex. the effects of steroids. 50% would get a placebo and 50% would get steroids, and perhaps it can even be a double-blind study.

But seriously, when it comes to health why fuck around? If something is actually wrong with me and I get a placebo I’m going to be pissed even if it does work.

There is always the question “what if?” If I actually needed the medicine and got a placebo and got worse because I wasn’t being treated, shit would hit the fan. Doctors also make mistakes so stop whining about being misdiagnosed (unless its something serious…then I understand)

Also, you can’t expected to get all these tests done unless you really are willing to fork over the cash.

Placebo use has its advantages and disadvantages, in my opinion. In certain cases, I can see the argument for their use. Such a situation would be treating a patient with a chronic condition that has failed to respond to the usual medications. There is a very real chance that the placebo might help the patient.

I think the main issue from the POV of the physician is how placebo use relates to informed consent. In order to get the “placebo effect,” the patient should not know that it is a placebo. But, if that is the case, the physician can not be completely honest with the patient.

And, I always think about this scenario: Say the placebo works and helps alleviate the chronic pain. A few months pass and the patient decides to do some research on what he or she is taking. Then they find out it is a placebo. Putting their emotional reaction to aside, is it likely that the pain will come back and the placebo will stop working? I don’t know the answer to that.

Although I do agree with prescribing placebos to a certain extent I do find it suprising that it is done so often because correct me if I’m wrong, but don’t doctors receive bonuses from pharmaceutical(sp?) Companies to prescribe their medications?

I wonder how much of the vitamin and supplement industry is driven by the placebo effect.

I love placebo. Does it matter, would you rather have them put some crazy medicine in you instead of just a placebo pill? If it works, dont change it! placebo works

[quote]SteelyD wrote:
REDACTED[/quote]

Yeah, I like boobs too.

[quote]msd0060 wrote:
I wonder if the pharmacists laugh behind your back as you walk out happily with a placebo?[/quote]

HAHA! The level of laughter is also probably proportional to the amount you paid for the placebo as well.

I was told Paracetamol for under 18’s was a placebo here.

[quote]Split wrote:
Although I do agree with prescribing placebos to a certain extent I do find it suprising that it is done so often because correct me if I’m wrong, but don’t doctors receive bonuses from pharmaceutical(sp?) Companies to prescribe their medications?[/quote]

The influence of the pharmaceutical companies is a concern. I used to work in maintenance for a company that owned a few hospitals and clinics, and got to watch the drug company reps and doctors as a fly on the wall, so to speak.

But inspite of all of the incentives drug companies give doctors to sell their drugs, they are still a lot of decent doctors out there who put their patient’s needs first. I can’t count how many times I saw doctors load up patients with free samples of expensive drugs when the patients said they couldn’t afford the prescription.

Can’t someone just google the name of their prescribed medication to find out if it is a placebo?

Then they could just walk into the doctors office and say “this isn’t working” and then get the real thing…

I’ve never been in this situation before so forgive me if I’m oversimplifying this.

Time to get hippie here…

There’s no money in the cure man, it’s in the medicine!

[quote]ASNAC wrote:
When I was reading a book about business school, I saw that 90% of all statistics are between 40-60 percent accurate and the remainder is just made up to account for standard deviation along with a +/- 3% for a buffer.

[/quote]

I wonder if that book was really 100% accurate, or if they only added information in as a buffer also. O.o mindfuck =D

I am curious about how a Dr. would write a placebo prescription. Is there some code - like a little asterisk or symbol?

if a doc wrote a script for a placebo and said it was for something other than what it
was intended for(not off label) he or she
can be criminally and civilly liable and lose the right to pratice medicine as per the state medical board. not only that it’s
unethical and fraud and you will find most
docs wont do that for that reason. if the doc you see isnt doing their job, go to a new one.