Are you taking a placebo? This may be a shocking idea. A placebo, after all, is a pill, potion or patch that is not expected to have any particular therapeutic effect on your condition. So, surely, your doctor would never prescribe one.
Actually, your doctor might, and with good reason. According to a recently published study, about half of the rheumatologists and internists who responded to a survey said they sometimes prescribe a placebo.
Now, these doctors were not writing prescriptions for sugar pills. Most were recommending vitamins or over-the-counter pain relievers such as aspirin or acetaminophen. About two-thirds of the respondents thought there was nothing unethical about this. After all, the treatments were meant to make the patient feel better without creating complications.
This research made headlines, perhaps because the placebo response is fascinating and mysterious. Astute observers have known for centuries that the expectation of getting benefit can have a powerful healing impact.
One of the most dramatic examples in medical literature comes from the middle of the 20th century. A man with lymphoma had large tumors throughout his body and was expected to die within a few weeks. As a last resort, his physician injected a dose of an experimental treatment called Krebiozen. The response was dramatic: "The tumor masses had melted like snow balls on a hot stove, and in only these few days they were half their original size! This is, of course, far more rapid regression than the most radiosensitive tumor could display under heavy X-ray given every day" (quoted by Larry Dossey in the book "The Extraordinary Healing Power of Ordinary Things").
