Placebo effect

[WiscGuy]

I have scoffed at doctors' suggestions that many people feel better when they are injecting B12 due to a placebo effect. That statement seems trite, simplistic, almost a throwaway comment. But it's likely that doctors attributing patient claims of feeling better to placebo are taking into consideration a complex combination of physical and psychological effects. I still scoff, but understand a bit better how this explanation could fit into the worldviews of some doctors.

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[Nackapan]

Yes placebo effect is a real thing .It's just infuriating it's used when it's actually ignorance of a condition though.

I was slso told it's the placebo effect I was having from a b12 injection !!

When told my symptoms were not possible 'just from b12 deficiency '

So must be psychosomatic!

I remember clearly early on after this comment an injection had no effect whatsoever .

Then started wondering if I'd actually been given it.

Like some sort of test .

My common sense told me it had to be given .

My 'addled' brain from B12 deficiency saying otherwise.

Horrible feeling none the less.

[topazrat]

I trust that comment about as much as the one my Doc gave me recently: 'One injection every three months corrects the deficiency and any symptoms left are likely to be psychological!'

[tomdickharry]

Blaming placebo effect is just a cop-out. Means they don't actually have to study anything; that would be too much for the poor overworked dears! All professionals are required to undertake Continuing Professional Development, which means that they are supposed to continue studying. Many are just too lazy, and if they do any at all, it's just to read someone else's paper.

Thinking and real study would be too taxing for them.

[EllaNore]

Interesting. I would think that after a short while of using a Placibo, any condition would soon over power the mind over matter and continue to hurt you.

[Bellabab]

I collapsed one day and rushed in to hospital by ambulance - after my blood was tested I was given a transfusion BUT I had no idea why I had collapsed nor what was in the transfusion. I quickly recovered so that MUST have been a real effect and not a placebo.

I was given B12 injections every 3 months and folic acid 5mg tablets daily, After a year I was feeling ill and no idea why. GP changed B12 to once every 2 months and life returned to normal again. Several months later I began to feel ill yet again and as the coronavirus pandemic had just begun to spread very rapidly, I knew GP appointment would be difficult to get, so began to read up about B12 deficiency & came across the PAS. A few weeks into lockdown I was falling about all over the place and could hardly get up I felt I was dying so I ordered B12 from Germany and started EOD injections. To my surprised I began to feel better within days. Definitely NOT a placebo.