Placebo Effect: Explain This!

[McGyver]

About 20 years ago, I had hyper-extended my knee doing gymnastics and it had swelled moderately with fluid for a couple weeks. This particular evening, a girl was spotting us whom I respected. She got right in my face about working out with a bad knee, saying "Either do the floor trick right, or get off your knee and go home. What's it gonna be!" I chose instead to STAY and work out! Strangely, the swelling was gone almost instantly, and knee strength was as good as it ever was. I even sprinted up my apartment stairs that evening. This 100% healing lasted for several weeks. Eventually pain and swelling did return, which lasted intermittently for 6 -12 mo.

[Biochemist]

Originally Posted by McGyver

...I had hyper-extended my knee doing gymnastics and it had swelled moderately with fluid for a couple weeks. ...I chose instead to STAY and work out! Strangely, the swelling was gone almost instantly, and knee strength was as good as it ever was. ... Eventually pain and swelling did return, which lasted intermittently for 6 -12 mo.

The placebo effect is real. Some folks think of the placebo effect as a frame of mind that changes perceptions. That is an inappropriate view. The placebo effect causes real, measurable, reporducible physiological changes. They are legitimately reparative (at times) and can also be destructive.

The mechanisms are quite varied, and I don't pretend to understand how they happen. Some are more obvious than others. But the effects are varied and real.

I remember (during my clinical pharmacy residency in Florida in the late '70s) that some of the cancer patients that were coming in for treatment had to begin their antinausea treatment a couple of days before they arrived at the center. If they did not, they began throwing up in the parking lot hours before the therapy began. The placebo effect is not always positive

[McGyver]

Originally Posted by Biochemist

The placebo effect is real. Some folks think of the placebo effect as a frame of mind that changes perceptions. That is an inappropriate view. The placebo effect causes real, measurable, reporducible physiological changes. They are legitimately reparative (at times) and can also be destructive.

In this instance, the mechanism would more aptly be described as "self induced hypnotic adoption." Agree? This gynastics coach provided the "suggestion," rather forcefully I might add, and I CHOSE to adopt it and instantly healed my knee.

I've had many healing incidents, including, overcoming a long term severe allergy to aspirin. Now with a CNS shunt for almost 13 years, I've learned to overcome headaches, short term memory issues, and relearn lost memories through many varied techniques. Most recently, drumming has helped me regain "perfect pitch" in music after 13 years.

During the 1980's, I was able to interview hundreds of patients living/dying from cancer. I found their belief system and personality traits for survival the most critical.

It is fascinating when people, athletes, performers, and such rise up to accomplish great feats. I've explored possibilities of super-human talents which could be more possible through altificial intelligence and mind techniques.

[Nix]

Originally Posted by McGyver

[Most recently, drumming has helped me regain "perfect pitch" in music after 13 years.

how did this work?? id imagine drumming to have limited tonality, so do you think it was the repetition of this limited tonality, or some product of the rhythm, or something else, that revived these memories? would taking up drums be good for my memory?

[Biochemist]

Originally Posted by McGyver

In this instance, the mechanism would more aptly be described as "self induced hypnotic adoption." Agree? This gynastics coach provided the "suggestion," rather forcefully I might add, and I CHOSE to adopt it and instantly healed my knee....

During the 1980's, I was able to interview hundreds of patients living/dying from cancer. I found their belief system and personality traits for survival the most critical.

I don't know whether in your case you only changed the perception of pain (endorphins do that) or whether you actually arrested inflammation (I suspect that is possible as well, but I do not know of a documented case- there probably are some).

There is a good body of work around the relationship between positive outlook and survival/remission in cancer patients. The correlation is strong enough that some oncologists actually consider lying to their patients to improve their otucomes. An interesting ethical dilemma

[Qfwfq]

Originally Posted by Biochemist

The correlation is strong enough that some oncologists actually consider lying to their patients to improve their otucomes. An interesting ethical dilemma

It could really backfire. After an aunt of mine had surgery for cancer, the doctor used a very convincing atitude in saying "You're cured." and this gave her a huge psychological boost, for months she really believed she would need no radiotherapy, but some time later tests showed she had to have some.

She has been fine since but, if she had been so convinced as to not want to take any tests, it might have been too late before she found out...

[McGyver]

Originally Posted by Nix

how did this work?? id imagine drumming to have limited tonality, so do you think it was the repetition of this limited tonality, or some product of the rhythm, or something else, that revived these memories? would taking up drums be good for my memory?

My best guess as to how drumming reinstated my perfect pitch in music is that it stimulated the rhythm center of the brain, and through repitition and playing with various artists and in various settings, it repaired or created new synapses to the other centers used in understanding music. Rhythm is math, and math and analytical relationships have always been my strength, and I used these relationships to create associations for remembering. Music is associations of tones, time, intensity, and rhythm. My missing piece to hearing music in perfect order had been "time" relationships and recognition of all. Repetitive, responsive, and creative drumming seemed to have been the activity that brought all together.

As for compensatory mechanisms to pain and illness, there is more to this effect than pain. Disipation of knee swelling, tumors in CA patients, and repairing of abnormal physiology of one's body is "healing." This goes beyond the placebo effect, and I don't believe Western medicine has ever really tried to explain this cause and effect in alternative medicine.

[McGyver]

My ultimate explanation for "Instanteous Healing" calls upon what little we know through "Super-String" or "String Theory," and the numerous other dimensions that are proposed to exist. Those other dimensions would encapsulate, time, creation, our Creator, gravitational influences, light, sound, thought, after-life, all life, and everything which we cannot presently explain today.