I have had two lots of electrical stimulation.
I first tried it with acupuncture when I had Bell’s Palsy (facial paralysis) after my doctor told me it would last for 6 weeks and that; while the acupuncture would do no good, it would do no harm. I was over the palsy in 3 weeks.
Some months back I woke up with a sore neck. During the course of the next 2 days I developed blinding pains in my shoulder and arm. My MD prescribed Codeine, which I ate like candy without any noticable relief. I was only able to resume sleeping (although virtually upright) when a friend lent me a TENS machine which worked as advertised. The nurse who recommended the TENS machine to me told me that in her experience it works for about half her patients. Eventually 2 visits to a chiropractor fixed my neck.
The idea of a placebo TENS machine has me puzzled - you sense elctrical stimulation of your skin but it’s not really happening?
No, it’s really happening, but it may only have beneficial effects because you THINK it does.
But how does that qualify as placebo effect. You have a valid placebo effect if, say Aspirin relieves 50% of headaches and an inert substitute achieves the same result. You can’t just simply give people aspirin and say it’s the placebo effect because it didn’t work in every case.
don’t ask, I think you may be confusing a placebo used in a double-blind study with the placebo effect. The placebo effect can work regardless of the clinical context: if the patient expects a particular treatment to be effective, he may indeed feel a benefit - even if the treatment does nothing. And the benefit may be real: the mind seems to have some capability of healing the body. Or, the body simply heals itself and the patient attributes it to the drug, the electrical stimulation or the witch-doctor’s dance.
The double-blind test is designed to get around this problem by comparing something known to be inert - such as a sugar pill, or even a surgical procedure in which the surgeon cuts you open, does nothing, and restitches - to a treatment that’s alleged to have an effect. Only if the treatment results in greater efficacy than the placebo is the treatment considered useful.
In this case, it’s almost impossible to set up a double-blind - it’s hard to fake electrical stimulation. But it’s still possible that all the benefits patients report getting are the result either of a mind-body connection or of coincidence. A study would have to compare this sort of stimulation with some other treatment whose effects have been well documented and understood.
OxyMoron that was a nice succinct explanation of the placebo effect but I already understood that.
I may just be being obtuse but it seems ridiculous to me that the placebo effect can be cited in cases where no placebo exists. My nurse friend tells me a TENS machine only works sometimes - depends on the source of the pain and individual physiology. I am rather inclined to think that this foreknowledge would limit the likelihood of the placebo effect.
Similarly with my chiropractic treatment - it doesn’t always work instantly but always works eventually. On many occasions one visit provides relief. Does it not work sometimes because I haven’t felt the placebo effect? I only use a chiropractor for spinal problems and have no belief in their abilities beyond that.
Could we likewise dismiss the beneficial effects of meditation and prayer (for those that believe in it) as placebo effect because they don’t always work for everyone?
As ever skepdic has interesting things to say.
Hi, Eve!
I’m the one who started the thread RJKUgly quoted above. My question was about how TENS devices work.
Fiddling with the one we got, we found that it seems to work for some kind of injuries, and not others. For my SO, on general muscles aches it worked well in the way you described: The pulses made her muscles contract and relax, blood seemed to increase and when the TENS device was finished its cycle, her muscles felt more relaxed – it was asif they had been massaged.
When I tried it out on the damaged, owie muscles of a wrist sprain, the pulses hurt a bit (in a good way, that felt like a massage but a little owier). The muscles were relaxed just afterwards, but the next day the muscles were NOT happy.
So, quite subjectively, I’d say for general aches and pains that only really need increased blood flow and a massage of sorts, the electrical pulses are nifty. On damaged muscles – not so good, but it didn’t actually seem t harm them.
P.S. If you stick the electrode pads to your face, you can make the coolest facial expressions!
Well, I think the articles I quoted indicated the TENS devices didn’t really work much better than doing nothing. In other words, the test groups would be split in three groups, One getting medication, one getting TENS, one getting nothing or a placebo pill. The TENS groups would report efficacy rates that were about the same as the rates for the placebo group. This would tend to indicate that when people report benefits from TENS devices in actual usage, it is from the placebo effect rather than from any actual physiological change.
However, the studies aren’t all in complete agreement, and there certainly seems to be bunches of anecdotal support. Myself, I’d still be leery, and I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t spend any significant money on them.
They do seem to be harmless, so no matter what, you’re probably not out anything but some bucks.
Ugly