Reverse Placebo Effect

by some peoples' estimation, a good portion of any drug's effectiveness is caused by the placebo reaction. there's also a "no-cebo" effect, where negative reactions can be caused by a similar mechanic. i suppose if you combined the two, it'd be quite possible.personally, and this is purely anecdotal of course, i find that many things that work entirely off the placebo reaction have little or no effect on me. i often require real medication, especially pain medication, in significantly higher doses, and more frequently (my dentist hates me). and being a former member of pentecostal-type churches, none of their antics ever did anything to me.i'd actually be somewhat interested in throwing myself into various double-blind placebo tests just to see if this is the effect you postulate above, or if i'm just immune or something.

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caffeine does little or nothing to me -- except that i'm hopelessly addicted to it. i decided consciously a few years back to drop all soda from my diet, and drink only water from then on. a week a later, i discovered that i could no longer function because of the migraines. i had initially believed -- rather firmly, i might add -- that there would be no actual difference. tylenol typically does nothing for me, either. i find that food and sleep work significantly better for curing headaches, as compared to four or five tylenol. which is about the dosage i was up to before i gave up even trying to make it work for me. advil (or ibuprofren) seems to help though.i once was prescribed percocet by a dentist after dental surgery. i didn't finish the little bottle, because i discovered that gum pain was better than extreme dizziness and gum pain. (i now tell hospitals that i'm "allergic" to it.) as i mentioned, my dentist hates working on me, whenever i need a filling or whatever. i take about two and half times the normal injection of local anesthetic, and it generally wears off in about the time it take to kick in for normal people. i could forward you some of my spam. potentially. i sort of suspect that, or perhaps sketicism, gets in the way of a proper, normal placebo reaction. well, as mentioned above, people can be given placebos, told they're placebos, and have it still work. i think the secret is to grind it up and put in their food -- so they're unaware they've even taken the medication. of course, this potentially runs afoul of some ethical concerns...

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perhaps.my anecdotal non-evidence is only really based on what my dentist's preconception of a normal amount of lidocaine appears to be -- probably a good indicator of what works on most people. for all i know, he might well be diluting it or something, but that dilution seems to work just fine on other people. the placebo reaction might well have something to do with that.interestingly, whatever it is could be hereditary. my father reports similar anecdotes.

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can't say i've tried that much. i've only been put under once, and it worked quite effectively. not sure what they used. i've gotten advice to take ibuprofren/advil several times, but generally as an anti-inflamatory. i do get a bit of the alertness, yes.but i suspect the headaches are a blood-flow thing. caffeine metabolizes into a couple of things, and small percentage of that is a vaso-dilator.Edited by arachnophilia, : typo

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