Doctors issuing placebos without patients' consent

[recycleanimals]

I picked up my university's daily newspaper today and read an article about how half of American doctors in a new survey say they regularly give patients placebo treatments without telling them. I'm going to summarize the article since I can't find a link on the newspaper's website

Comments

the Placebo effect

[persistwellness]

The doctor can also give you LESS of a med than would be effective. This happen to me early on. The doctor prescribed me a ridiculously low dose of a med - I don't remember the medication, but I remember that it did nothing and I was pissed to find out he gave me a sub-pharmacological dose.

Post script - I left that practice but quick!

Re: the Placebo effect

[recycleanimals]

That's ridiculous. I understand the scientific basis of the placebo effect and that it can sometimes work, but I still believe it's highly unethical for a doctor to lie to their patients and not take their illness seriously. I would rather have a doctor tell me that he doesn't believe me or doesn't want to help me than make me believe he IS helping me when he's not.

Re: the Placebo effect

[persistwellness]

I would rather have a doctor tell me that he doesn't believe me or doesn't want to help me than make me believe he IS helping me when he's not.

I am totally with you on that. I was an informed patient and I just could.not.function anymore. I didn't need him playing around. It ended up costing me valuable time in getting to the right diagnosis.

Re: the Placebo effect

[odetoverse]

what did he say when he prescribed it to you? cause legally the wording gets pretty iffy =X

[recycleanimals]

That is definitely one of the reasons why this is just so, SO unethical.

[odetoverse]

in webmd it said they either prescribe vitamins and minerals (maybe something like choline or something like that) or antiobiotics (this is for when the mom's come into peds when their kid has the smallest cough and no fever and they DEMAND 1000 mg of ciproxin because despite having no symptoms of an infection and the rising rate of antibiotic resistant infections their 3 year old has a MAJOR infection!) but if you have a cold and you take a dose of antiobiotics then it goes away on it's own and the parent is more relieved. they can't exactly prescribe you something you could easily google as sugar pills because then you'd find out pretty quick

[odetoverse]

i think it's also important to remember that, unfortuantely, there are people out there who really do have conversion disorder and unfortuanately, a lot of them will look up the symptoms of fibro or chronic fatigue and then act like they have it. (there's other things they can do like take medication that causes side effects like swelling, seizures and fainting and then say they have no idea how it happened).

but unfortuantely this stuff does happen. and it really upsets me that their LEGIT psychosis is causing me to be denied healthcare and doctors' trust at times. but i don't 100% blame the doctors because they've all seen it a lot.

ugh now when i think about it i get all angry. no joke. at the same time i don't blame them because they have an illness too...but it totally sucks for us T_T

[stupidore]

My doctors treat me a bit like I've made it up for attention or I'm just a big drug seeker or something but if I was going to make up an illness for attention it definitely wouldn't be this one!
It would be something that people have heard of, without all the nasty making-it-up connotations, that's coherent (how do you explain that you can't lift anything today but might be fine with lifting tomorrow yet unable to walk properly?) and doesn't systematically go for all the fun things in life (I can't drink, stay up late, enjoy food thanks to taking ibuprofen for too long now, fit into my favorite jeans thanks to the weight gain side effect, concentrate on my dissertation reading or even string a sentence together some days, or enjoy sex).
Hell I HAVE fibro and I still doubt myself some days, there's this little voice in my head which always tells me that everyone else has the exact same thing, they're just all dealing with it properly etc etc.

[recycleanimals]

Hell I HAVE fibro and I still doubt myself some days, there's this little voice in my head which always tells me that everyone else has the exact same thing, they're just all dealing with it properly etc etc.

Oh man, me too. Sometimes I think that I'm just weak and pathetic and my pain isn't any worse than anyone else's.

[presenttense80]

This is horrible. The doctor should just tell the patient they can't treat them. I know when I see my doctors - that does not automatically give my consent to be in a scientific test of sorts.
This can make a patient feel even worse, if the doctor won't treat them, they can see someone else.
Also - if the patient is paying for the medicine via the pharmacy, how do they end up with placebo pills? That would be fraud by the pharmacy, kind of.
If you had to pay for the medicine and found out it was a placebo I would be livid. I take 13 medicines everyday and it costs me over 150 a month. No one should pay for sugar pills.

I guess, all in all, I don't get how the doctor would get the patient the placebo. This is so unethical.

[miladyelizabeth]

My biggest issue would be the money. I understand the mental aspect of the placebo effect, but I would hate to spend hundreds of dollars on nothing. Urgh.