cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/41348657
this post was submitted on 09 Jan 2026
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"Then I might be in need of actual medication to address my headaches, sweating and nausea."
It's actually not uncommon. People expect and manifest symptoms all the time.
What side effects a drug would be likely to cause, the pharmacologist likely knows long before ever giving it to a human. When the human reports side effects that the drug is unlikely to cause...that human was probably a placebo.
So i can get a headache only by placebo?? Wait, can it happen in reverse? Like, i have an headache and i convince mysef that i took a cure for it
Yeah, that's the placebo effect as far as I know. Side effects are the nocebo effect.
If I remember my biology classes correctly, placeo - "to please", vs. noceo - "to harm"
Yeah, placebo and nocebo are future tense "I will please" "I will harm"
Placebo can work even if you're aware it's a placebo.
That's peak, i'il def use it
important note:
placebo is caused by a strong belief, even if logically you know it's not real it can still work
but
you first need the strong belief. how do you get such a strong belief? with a ritual of course. not necessarily one with bubbling cauldrons during the full moon (though if you believe in that kind of magic that'd work as well) but one that has you going to a place you associate with health, and talking to a person in a special outfit that you believe will fix you, then going to a secondary health place, and getting the health ~~potion~~ pills from someone in a special outfit. also called - going to a doctor and picking up meds from a pharmacy.
this entire process sets up the right environment for strongly believing you're going to feel better now, and then the sugar pills supercharged with placebo will work like magic.
they will also work if at some point either the doctor or the pharmacist whispers to you "btw that's just placebo". that's because the belief you've already established is much stronger than your logic
but if you just go out and buy tictacs at a gas station then chant to yourself "this will cure my headache this will cure my headache" it won't work, because you didn't have an opportunity to establish any emotional belief about them ie. you didn't manage to convince the emotional part of your brain that it'll work
this is also why homeopathy, essential oils, charging crystals, and other purely belief bases approaches work despite the thing itself not doing anything. the rituals surrounding those things simply manage to build a strong enough belief that causes the placebo effect
the same is true for the opposite - nocebo - if you strongly believe something is going to make you feel bad - it's going to
Mh i see, interessing
Most people believe red painkillers work better than other colours. Because of that when painkillers are tested, red ones work better (and red placebos also). You might find the placebo effect of red painkillers effective
Yes, and there's actually some interesting results from this too. Pain medicine marketed as targeting specific pains, such as headaches or toothaches, are often just generic ibuprofen or acetaminophen, but there is some evidence that the pain medicine will be more effective if you believe it is targeting your specific pain. So whenever my wife wants an Advil I always tell her that it's a special Advil that is for whatever specific thing she complained about.
That's gonna be useful
Well...Excedrin stacks Aspirin and Caffeine too. I'd always thought the caffeine was because caffeine withdrawal can cause headaches.
I think caffeine also supresses certain kinds of headaches on its own, without the addiction. I had headaches before starting my caffeine habit and I also had them like half a year into quitting caffeine completely, and IME the caffeine definitely helps with them even when I wasn't years into a habit of drinking several cups of coffee every day.
The reverse is only possible if you are a time traveler or critically insane.
That's why when I saw the long list of side effects of the medication for quit smoking I never read it, I gave it to a friend and ask her if whatever was one of the possible side effects.