THE FIVE MINUTE CURE FOR HYPOCHONDRIA
Ever since humans wiped themselves with leaves, they've had potions, tonics, elixirs, salves, and ointments to address their symptoms. None of this crap did any good, but if you asked those sufferers throughout history whether or not they found relief in these remedies, they would have sworn they had.
Today we're smug that our modern medicines work miracles, but truth is, if we could look back a hundred years from now, we'd get a big chuckle over the fact that we ever believed any of these treatments did any good.
This brings us to today's topic: suffering, and its harbinger, hypochondria.
Everyone is a hypochondriac to some degree. That means you. I challenge you to treat your hypochondria in five minutes by utilizing my new, proven method.
There are people who feel healthy when they are not. Hypertension patients can keel over having never felt any symptoms of their disease. The absence of symptoms is not the same as being healthy.
Hypochondriacs, on the other hand, imagine they are physically ill when they are not. They don't fake symptoms. That's Munchausen syndrome, or factitious disorder. Rather, hypochondriacs are sure that their symptoms are evidence of a disease or injury that never materializes because it doesn't exist.
Placebos are inert sugar pills used in place of medicines to trick patients into thinking that help is on the way. People who are, in fact, sick -- and know it -- are often helped by placebos. Placebos usually have a positive effect.
So what happens when you give a placebo to a hypochondriac? Hypochondriacs cannot feel better and still be a hypochondriacs, so the placebo has no effect on them at all. But then, the placebo, being inert, shouldn't have an effect on them anyway. So the hypochondriac is tricked into thinking he's getting help, but the help is actually a hindrance to believing he is sick, which he is not, so the placebo effect disappears, which is correct but for the wrong reasons. After all, the hypochondriac isn't really sick anyway. Are you with me?
But here's where it gets good. About a quarter of patients receiving a placebo have an adverse reaction to the pill, or a negative placebo effect. This negative placebo effect is called the "nocebo" effect. Though the placebo is inert, people suffering from the nocebo effect will get headaches, nausea, or any of a host of contraindications that aren't there because the pill has no active ingredients in it.
Actually, it would be inaccurate to say that patients suffer from the negative efects of the nocebo effect, since the positive effects of placebos are illusory and you can't have a double illusion (unless you're George Bush). That would be a double negative effect which would give you a positive effect, and therefore a contradiction in terms or more specifically, a contradiction of contraindications.
PNL, being at the cutting edge of science, thought it would be interesting to find out what would happen if one gave a placebo to a hypochondriac suffering from the nocebo effect.
Now, the hypochondriac, believing he is sick when he is not, and feeling his placebo is making his symptoms worse, starts to feel better because he knows the placebo will negate the symptoms telling him he is sick -- which would contradict his hypochondria, but since he has the nocebo effect syndrome as well, he dismisses the fact that the placebo can negate his symptoms and his symptoms vanish. Now the hypochondriac feels well and has no symptoms.
Voila! Better living through science.
Unfortunately, as we said in the beginning, the newly-cured hypochondriac feels well but could soon drop dead of a heart attack. Had he simply stayed a hypochondriac, he could have avoided the disappointment of thinking he was healthy when quite possibly he wasn't.
Ever since humans wiped themselves with leaves, they've had potions, tonics, elixirs, salves, and ointments to address their symptoms. None of this crap did any good, but if you asked those sufferers throughout history whether or not they found relief in these remedies, they would have sworn they had.
Today we're smug that our modern medicines work miracles, but truth is, if we could look back a hundred years from now, we'd get a big chuckle over the fact that we ever believed any of these treatments did any good.
This brings us to today's topic: suffering, and its harbinger, hypochondria.
Everyone is a hypochondriac to some degree. That means you. I challenge you to treat your hypochondria in five minutes by utilizing my new, proven method.
There are people who feel healthy when they are not. Hypertension patients can keel over having never felt any symptoms of their disease. The absence of symptoms is not the same as being healthy.
Hypochondriacs, on the other hand, imagine they are physically ill when they are not. They don't fake symptoms. That's Munchausen syndrome, or factitious disorder. Rather, hypochondriacs are sure that their symptoms are evidence of a disease or injury that never materializes because it doesn't exist.
Placebos are inert sugar pills used in place of medicines to trick patients into thinking that help is on the way. People who are, in fact, sick -- and know it -- are often helped by placebos. Placebos usually have a positive effect.
So what happens when you give a placebo to a hypochondriac? Hypochondriacs cannot feel better and still be a hypochondriacs, so the placebo has no effect on them at all. But then, the placebo, being inert, shouldn't have an effect on them anyway. So the hypochondriac is tricked into thinking he's getting help, but the help is actually a hindrance to believing he is sick, which he is not, so the placebo effect disappears, which is correct but for the wrong reasons. After all, the hypochondriac isn't really sick anyway. Are you with me?
But here's where it gets good. About a quarter of patients receiving a placebo have an adverse reaction to the pill, or a negative placebo effect. This negative placebo effect is called the "nocebo" effect. Though the placebo is inert, people suffering from the nocebo effect will get headaches, nausea, or any of a host of contraindications that aren't there because the pill has no active ingredients in it.
Actually, it would be inaccurate to say that patients suffer from the negative efects of the nocebo effect, since the positive effects of placebos are illusory and you can't have a double illusion (unless you're George Bush). That would be a double negative effect which would give you a positive effect, and therefore a contradiction in terms or more specifically, a contradiction of contraindications.
PNL, being at the cutting edge of science, thought it would be interesting to find out what would happen if one gave a placebo to a hypochondriac suffering from the nocebo effect.
Now, the hypochondriac, believing he is sick when he is not, and feeling his placebo is making his symptoms worse, starts to feel better because he knows the placebo will negate the symptoms telling him he is sick -- which would contradict his hypochondria, but since he has the nocebo effect syndrome as well, he dismisses the fact that the placebo can negate his symptoms and his symptoms vanish. Now the hypochondriac feels well and has no symptoms.
Voila! Better living through science.
Unfortunately, as we said in the beginning, the newly-cured hypochondriac feels well but could soon drop dead of a heart attack. Had he simply stayed a hypochondriac, he could have avoided the disappointment of thinking he was healthy when quite possibly he wasn't.
posted by R. Reynolds at 11:34 AM
2 Comments:
This is the longest rationalization for a mental malady I have ever read! We all know the editor suffers from (or basks in) hypochondria. I think it's time for the Science Editor to weigh-in on this subject. --USCE
Hysterical! Loved it!
Not too long ago, two fellows (can't remember which religious cult...but they were clean-cut, suits and ties early in the summer--probably the same group) tried approaching my door. I noticed them leaving someone else's house (no one was home) and I was just pulling out of my driveway for a 15- minute run to the Post Office. My 14-year-old daughter and 10-year-old son were HOME ALONE. (While my daughter could benefit from converting to anything other than Shopaholic, my son's just fine the way he is, and already quite the skeptic.) When I saw these two making their way to my house, I told them to "Stay the fuck away, or I'd call the cops." (They weren't kidding about Jews!) I proceeded to throw a mini tantrum about how this isn't the 50s and that it's no longer acceptable for Bible thumping strangers to go knocking on doors in the middle of the day when parents might not be home.They said, "Sure, no problem, ma'm," and proceeded with their mission on the rest of our lane.
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