# Do You Make Use of The Placebo Affect **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [June 10, 2024, 4:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-make-use-of-the-placebo-affect/1002693 "2024-06-10T04:16:19Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 19\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![DorkVader](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/73ab20/32.png) [@DorkVader](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DorkVader)\ **Post date:** [June 10, 2024, 4:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-make-use-of-the-placebo-affect/1002693/1 "2024-06-10T04:16:19Z")
Not really sure where this belongs so I’ll stick it here and if someone decides it needs moved, thats fine. Question is the title. Do you make use of the placebo affect? Effect? I should know but I’m not sure which is the correct word. Anyway, do you? Do you, like me, get a boost from coffee even though the coffee is decaf? What is your placebo if you do this? ---
**Author:** ![CairoCarol](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cairocarol/32/3825_2.png) [@CairoCarol](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CairoCarol)\ **Post date:** [June 10, 2024, 4:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-make-use-of-the-placebo-affect/1002693/2 "2024-06-10T04:29:27Z")
Yes I do, although not in the way you suggest - if I drank decaf coffee, I would not expect caffeination effects. A little ambiguity goes a long way, and I am willing to take eyes-wide-open advantage of that: There have been health-related circumstances in my life where there might be a palliative or an explanation, but there is no evidence-based conclusion, and I have chosen to believe that steps I’ve taken have helped. Case in point: Years ago I started having weird intestinal cramps (probably stress-triggered, as they began during a really stressful time in my life). I got diagnosed with IBS (Irritable Bowel Syndrome) which it seems to me is basically “yeah, your bowels hurt … we don’t know why but nothing seems to be super wrong, so get on with your life.” I did get on with my life. Then several years later, the symptoms miraculously disappeared for several (still stressful) years. And then they came back. So what changed? The water I drank. When I was on city water, which is chorinated, I had IBS. When I drank non-city water, the symptoms disappeared. So I have been IBS-symptom free for a while, until recently, when I changed my drinking water source back to city water, and the symptoms came back. Now I have gone back to the other water source and the symptoms are going away. To be clear, there is zero science, merely speculation, behind these changes. Maybe the water has nothing to do with my symptoms. No where have I found any evidence-based information to support my experience. So I’m basically relying on the placebo effect, and I am well aware of this. What I say is: **“It might be all in my head. But my head is where I live.”** ---
**Author:** ![markn\_1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f9ae1b/32.png) [@markn\_1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/markn_1)\ **Post date:** [June 10, 2024, 5:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-make-use-of-the-placebo-affect/1002693/3 "2024-06-10T05:08:03Z")
To answer the most important part of the OP, it’s “placebo effect”. “Effect” and “affect” are perhaps the most confusing word pair in English, because they both have multiple meanings, both can be either a noun or a verb, and there is some semantic overlap between several of the meanings of both. Most commonly, “effect” is a noun meaning “a phenomenon” as in “placebo effect”, and “affect” is a verb meaning “to influence”. But more rarely, “effect” can be a verb meaning “to make something happen” and “affect” can be a noun meaning “an emotion or mood”. And there are a host of other meanings for both words. ---
**Author:** ![Velocity](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/velocity/32/18006_2.png) [@Velocity](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Velocity)\ **Post date:** [June 10, 2024, 6:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-make-use-of-the-placebo-affect/1002693/4 "2024-06-10T06:13:44Z")
I don’t know how to use the placebo effect since the purpose of it is that you need to be fooled into thinking something is something it’s not, and you can’t fool yourself since you’d know. If someone were to replace my Adderall pills with fake pills, for instance, and I were none the wiser, then maybe I would still feel a familiar buzz from the medication because I’d expect to feel it. But I couldn’t possibly replace the pills _myself_ with fake pills and feel it; I’d know they were fake. ---
**Author:** ![CairoCarol](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cairocarol/32/3825_2.png) [@CairoCarol](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CairoCarol)\ **Post date:** [June 10, 2024, 6:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-make-use-of-the-placebo-affect/1002693/5 "2024-06-10T06:57:43Z")
> [@Velocity](#): > > you need to be fooled into thinking something is something it’s not, and you can’t fool yourself since you’d know. Studies show that the placebo effect can be effective even when you know that it’s a placebo. Cite Hence my joke about it working even though I know it’s in my head. ---
**Author:** ![DorkVader](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/73ab20/32.png) [@DorkVader](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DorkVader)\ **Post date:** [June 10, 2024, 11:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-make-use-of-the-placebo-affect/1002693/6 "2024-06-10T11:10:39Z")
Yeah, what CairoCarol said. You can take a sugar pill knowing what it is and still have your body react as though it was actual medicine chemically speaking. I get an energy boost from decaffeinated coffee. Is there something in coffee other than caffeine to account for that? I don’t know, could be? But I still am able to sleep at night after drinking a pot of coffee throughout the day, which is why I switched to decaf. ---
**Author:** ![JaneDoe42](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/janedoe42/32/14104_2.png) [@JaneDoe42](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JaneDoe42)\ **Post date:** [June 10, 2024, 1:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-make-use-of-the-placebo-affect/1002693/7 "2024-06-10T13:54:54Z")
Many years ago, I managed to convince myself that drinking milk before bed would help me sleep. It works amazingly well, half a glass of milk after dark and I’m asleep in half an hour. ---
**Author:** ![Uniqueorn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/uniqueorn/32/2807_2.png) [@Uniqueorn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Uniqueorn)\ **Post date:** [June 10, 2024, 3:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-make-use-of-the-placebo-affect/1002693/8 "2024-06-10T15:12:18Z")
I have some sugar pills in a nice looking glas jar and whenever I have a headache or a stomach upset, I take one. Nearly always works. ---
**Author:** ![Thudlow\_Boink](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thudlow_boink/32/320_2.png) [@Thudlow\_Boink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thudlow_Boink)\ **Post date:** [June 10, 2024, 4:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-make-use-of-the-placebo-affect/1002693/9 "2024-06-10T16:53:25Z")
> [@CairoCarol](#): > > Studies show that the placebo effect can be effective even when you know that it’s a placebo. Cite Did you forget to paste the link for your “cite”? Meanwhile, if anyone needs a cite, there’s this: > **[The power of the placebo effect - Harvard Health](https://www.health.harvard.edu/mental-health/the-power-of-the-placebo-effect)** > > Under the right circumstances, a placebo effect—in which the brain convinces the body a fake treatment is the real thing—can be as effective as traditional treatments.... > [@](#): > > A study led by Kaptchuk and published in _Science Translational Medicine_ explored this by testing how people reacted to migraine pain medication. One group took a migraine drug labeled with the drug’s name, another took a placebo labeled “placebo,” and a third group took nothing. The researchers discovered that the placebo was 50% as effective as the real drug to reduce pain after a migraine attack. > > The researchers speculated that a driving force beyond this reaction was the simple act of taking a pill. “People associate the ritual of taking medicine as a positive healing effect,” says Kaptchuk. “Even if they know it’s not medicine, the action itself can stimulate the brain into thinking the body is being healed.” ---
**Author:** ![CairoCarol](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cairocarol/32/3825_2.png) [@CairoCarol](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CairoCarol)\ **Post date:** [June 10, 2024, 6:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-make-use-of-the-placebo-affect/1002693/10 "2024-06-10T18:42:30Z")
> [@Thudlow\_Boink](#): > > Did you forget to paste the link for your “cite”? No, I didn’t - on my screen you can see that there was a link pasted. Does it not show blue for you? It does for me. But it does seem that I glitched, as it doesn’t work. [Here is the cite.](https://www.apa.org/monitor/2011/03/placebos#:~:text=A%20new%20study%20in%20The,more%20often%20than%20people%20think.) ---
**Author:** ![Thudlow\_Boink](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thudlow_boink/32/320_2.png) [@Thudlow\_Boink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thudlow_Boink)\ **Post date:** [June 10, 2024, 6:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-make-use-of-the-placebo-affect/1002693/11 "2024-06-10T18:49:01Z")
> [@CairoCarol](#): > > Does it not show blue for you? It does for me It shows blue and acts like a link, but it’s not a link _to_ anything. I wasn’t, and still am not, sure how that happened. ---
**Author:** ![CairoCarol](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cairocarol/32/3825_2.png) [@CairoCarol](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CairoCarol)\ **Post date:** [June 10, 2024, 8:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-make-use-of-the-placebo-affect/1002693/12 "2024-06-10T20:34:12Z")
I think I just goofed. Probably I thought I was pasting a URL but pasted something else. Anyway I think your cite is a better/newer source than mine, so it’s all good. ---
**Author:** ![bump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7c8e57/32.png) [@bump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bump)\ **Post date:** [June 10, 2024, 11:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-make-use-of-the-placebo-affect/1002693/13 "2024-06-10T23:56:23Z")
I do, but mostly on my children. Like they gripe about things that are not a big deal, and I tell them that a glass of water will work, etc… Probably 70% of the time, it works great. ---
**Author:** ![Treppenwitz](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/treppenwitz/32/3445_2.png) [@Treppenwitz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Treppenwitz)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2024, 8:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-make-use-of-the-placebo-affect/1002693/14 "2024-06-11T20:19:05Z")
It seems that I do. I recall a conversation of posts with @Qadgop_the_Mercotan in which he detailed the duration of treatment with topical NSAIDs required to provide analgesia. I have no doubt that, as a retired doctor, he is correct - a couple of weeks as I recall. But I’ll use a single application on my achilles when it’s playing up, and that works for me. The placebo effect in studies of topical analgesics is huge, so I guess that’s what’s happening - and I’m fine with that. Works for me. That’s what matters, right? j ---
**Author:** ![Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/qadgop_the_mercotan/32/83_2.png) [@Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Qadgop_the_Mercotan)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2024, 9:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-make-use-of-the-placebo-affect/1002693/15 "2024-06-11T21:13:18Z")
> [@Treppenwitz](#): > > It seems that I do. I recall a conversation of posts with @Qadgop_the_Mercotan in which he detailed the duration of treatment with topical NSAIDs required to provide analgesia. I have no doubt that, as a retired doctor, he is correct - a couple of weeks as I recall. I fear your recollection may be incorrect. I routinely told my patients that analgesia (a reduction in pain) can take place within a few minutes to an hour of receiving a topical or oral NSAID dose. It’s getting the anti-inflammatory effect that takes a couple of weeks of regular dosing. ---
**Author:** ![Treppenwitz](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/treppenwitz/32/3445_2.png) [@Treppenwitz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Treppenwitz)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2024, 9:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-make-use-of-the-placebo-affect/1002693/16 "2024-06-11T21:37:34Z")
Oops - my apologies. I stand corrected. Treated rather than placebo - I almost feel disappointed. j ---
**Author:** ![CairoCarol](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cairocarol/32/3825_2.png) [@CairoCarol](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CairoCarol)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2024, 10:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-make-use-of-the-placebo-affect/1002693/17 "2024-06-11T22:17:11Z")
Just remembered a great placebo effect treatment my parents swore by, and which I have used on those very rare occasions where I’ve needed it: To soothe a sore throat, loosely tie a bandanna around your neck. I’m not prone to sore throats (my nasal passages are generally the happening place when I have a respiratory ailment) but this is an incredibly helpful practice - my guess is that it is psychologically comforting to have gentle pressure on your neck, and the brain takes it from there. Both of my parents had training in medical science, and they agreed it was just a placebo effect - but a highly effective one. ---
**Author:** ![Noelq](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/noelq/32/16438_2.png) [@Noelq](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Noelq)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2024, 10:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-make-use-of-the-placebo-affect/1002693/18 "2024-06-11T22:53:14Z")
Yep. I’m an IT guy. People will call up with a random, strange issue. Or complain their laptop is too slow. I’ll do a quick deletion of their temp files using the Disk Cleanup feature. Restart their machine, and poof, all fixed. Except 75% of the time, its all in their head. They just wanted it to look like something was done on their machine. ---
**Author:** ![Hypno-Toad](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/b2d939/32.png) [@Hypno-Toad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hypno-Toad)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2024, 4:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-make-use-of-the-placebo-affect/1002693/19 "2024-06-12T16:36:30Z")
I’m always wondering if the placebo effect is in play. If I take some aspirin for a headache and the pain goes away, I wonder if the pill did it chemically, if the act of taking a pill calmed me down which made the pain go away, or if taking the med gave me patience to wait until the pain went away on its own. I never know for sure. I think that taking melatonin has been chemically effective on me and so now it works well placebo-wise as well.