• kase@lemmy.world
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        9 months ago

        Weird question. Do you know what would happen if you gave two groups a painkiller, told one group that it should help and told the other that it shouldn’t work (or that it was a placebo)? I’m curious if the drug would still work as well if the patient was told it isn’t supposed to.

        I’d google it, but I have no idea what keywords to use lol.

    • UndercoverUlrikHD@programming.dev
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      9 months ago

      A lot of aches and pains are just made up by your brain. Modalities such as massages, foam rollers, etc… does nothing to you when it comes to actually healing your body or helping your recovery, but many people swear by it regardless.

      Slight ache in your lower back? Depending how you mentally approach it, that pain may dissappear or get worse.

      It’s why doctors have to careful about the nocebo effect, you might end creating a negative side effect for for your patient by just mentioning the potential side effects.

    • cynar@lemmy.world
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      9 months ago

      Self hypnosis is a good example. You can cause large scale changes in mental feedback loops, with nothing but some effort and a guiding voice. It’s to the point where people have had surgery without anesthetic. They used hypnosis to literally turn off pain.

      I suspect most placebo effects work through the same pathways in the brain. The trick is tapping into them and creating a new stable feedback loop.