Dear Xiaoxiayaoyouzi,
It has been found that the effect of placebos (those little baking soda pills,) are often good in the beginning when the medical client has been given them and hope has helped them, but if the problem is caused by a physical illness they will not continue to make the person feel better.
In the 1950's, 1960's and 1970's here in the west many came to believe that most ills that people consulted physicians about were caused by the mind. Magazines had articles about it frequently. Physicians believed it. Ill people felt guilty and that they were "doing it to themselves." Of course some ills *are* caused by the mind. Most, however, are a combination of mind and body, and many are wholly physical. This is now well recognized.
During the time that most ills were ascribed to the mind many injustices were done to people who really had physical ills. Can you imagine really being physically ill, and told that it was "all in your mind"? It was a convenient way for a physician who didn't know what the trouble really was, to save face. If he could "blame the victim" he didn't have to feel responsibility for what he did not know.
I say "he" in regards to physicians, because back then most physicians were men. Now more and more physicians here are women, and they quickly gain many clients who seek their medical advice. They are often more compassionate and understanding than many male physicians. Not only women prefer women physicians, although very many do. Some men also prefer them. It is often difficult to become a client of a female physician, for this reason.
Remember the old saying, "a little knowledge is a dangerous thing"? This little knowledge of the supposed effects of the mind caused people to believe that other people would not be sick if they "didn't think about themselves so much." It caused the ones who had symptoms to be afraid to go to a physician in case they were humiliated that it was "all in their minds," so that often illnesses were left too long before being properly diagnosed. People put up with symptoms too long.
I wonder what the physician with the placebo baking soda pills told the medical dispensary to charge the patient for the false pills? Do you think that the patient would be fooled for long if charged the value of baking soda pills? So I ask you, who was the thief, and who the one whose money was being stolen? Was it the government that was cheated as it paid full price through the client's medical plan for phony pills? Was it the Health Insurance Company that the client subscribed to that paid too much? Was it the client themselves, out of their purse? Who got the extra money?
Or do you think the doctor rolled up the little white baking soda pills himself and gave them to the client without cost? In that case, the physician was dispensing. That is against the law in many western countries. Physicians are kept separate from pharmacies so that doctors cannot dispense too many pills in order to make more money. Therefore doctors do not dispense. The most that any doctor I have consulted has done is to give me a commercially packaged sample of a well known medicine. If it helped I then got a prescription and went to a pharmacy to have it filled.
So how do you think it is worked when suffering clients are given baking soda placebos? If the placebo continues to work, how do they continue to fool the client? I have always puzzled about this and I wonder if you or anyone here has some idea?
If a client has such symptoms which are completely caused by the mind, they probably need more than a little baking soda pill. They probably need counselling by a professional to see what the cause is and to find out how to adjust their life or to adapt differently so that they are not in physical distress.
Be careful of letting anybody tell you "it is all in your head." It may be, but your head may need true medication, and not just baking soda pills and being fooled. Or you may need some help to sort out what life situation, past or present, is causing the problem.
Always try to know enough so that you can think for yourself. Know how to research. Don't be sucked in by the "flavour of the day" medical beliefs.
Take care. Best wishes, Mary
