Migraine Headaches and the Remarkable Power of Placebos

[Jesus Malverde]

It's one of our most powerful medical treatments, and certainly our most widely-effective. In recent years, it's been found to help treat or reduce the symptoms of clinical depression, irritable bowel syndrome, panic attacks, coughing, ADHD, restless leg syndrome and erectile dysfunction, among other conditions.

The latest study to demonstrate its remarkable effectiveness was published today in Science Translational Medicine. In it, the treatment was administered to people who chronically suffer from migraine headaches and found to be just as effective as rizatriptan, one of the most widely-used migraine drugs.

This name of this wonderful treatment? It's the placebo effect, the remarkable power of the human brain to unconsciously influence the functioning and perception of the body.

The term was first used sometime during the 1700s (it's Latin for "I shall please&quot , but the concept itself dates back centuries. Historically, doctors believed that one of their key duties, in addition to curing a patient, was to console him or her, providing a morale boost that could help them to get better faster—sometimes in the form of a dummy medicine that had no effect beyond instilling the expectation of improvement in the patient's brain.

It's now widely recognized that, while largely ineffective in improving objective symptoms (like high blood pressure or an infection, for instance), placebos are genuinely effective in treating subjective, self-reported symptoms, including all sorts of pain. Placebos can take all sorts of forms: inert sugar pills, sham surgeries and saline injections.

Of course, none of this implies that people who report relief from a placebo are "faking" their conditions or pain—far from it. They, like all of us, are simply subject to the same surprising mechanisms that allow our brain's expectations to alter how we perceive our body and health.

Read more: http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/migraine-headaches-and-remarkable-power-placebos-180949284/

[niyad]

1. anybody else here remember the MASH episode about placebos? with a morphine shipment possibly

contaminated, and many wounded, col. potter recommends giving the sugar pill placebos a try, and it appears to work. maj. winchester, of course, does not believe in it until he sees the results.

[Duer 157099]

2. "while largely ineffective in improving objective symptoms"

I just don't quite like the way that reads. It sort of disqualifies the rest of the material for me.

[laundry_queen]

3. Migraines are not only about pain

if someone can give me a placebo to halt the visual disturbances, please, do. I can deal with the pain. The weird lights blocking my vision? Not so much.

[anneboleyn]

4. Yeah, the "subjective" vomiting I have w/migraines sucks too.

This is quite a dangerous "article" and frankly offensive to anyone who has to endure "subjective" conditions like migraines. There have been many studies showing that chronic pain takes quite a vicious toll on the body. But maybe the sufferers are just making things up according to this? Real pain sucks. It would be nice if it were that easy.

[Ms. Toad]

6. Same here.

Since I was 4 years old.

[unblock]

7. exactly. if the article said tension headache, or maybe even cluster headaches, ok.

cluster headaches, afaik, are only pain. incredibly massive pain, but only pain.

migraine, otoh, is a cascade of a constellation of symptoms, including changes to emotions, sensitivity to various senses, most notably sight, but also sound, smell, and touch. probably taste as well but i try to avoid that because nausea is also high up there as well. temperature sensitivity (sweats/chills), i could go on.

i'm convinced that most of the so-called prophylactic migraine medicines rely largely, if not entirely, on the placebo effect. note that the best placebos aren't actually sugar pills or things that objectively do nothing. the best placebos give you some sort of side-effect so that you are aware you've taken medicine, helping you to believe you've done something to address your ailment.

[Ms. Toad]

5. I'd almost go so far as to say that anyone whose "migraine" subsided

in response to a placebo didn't really have a migraine.

Subjective, my A$$. That's why I spent much of my childhood vomiting because my mother - who never had a headache in her life - couldn't imagine a headache could cause her 4 year old to be moaning in pain for hours followed by vomiting. And - if placebos really were a solution, it wouldn't have mattered if I took NSAIDS or acetaminophen back when I was too young to know the difference. But one kept me from vomiting and the other didn't. (And, as an adult when I could not take NSAIDS for extended periods of time, it took a 5-drug combination to provide any relief.)