[ebzZzZ (OP)]

placebo --> where a treatment works not because
            of the treatment but because the patient
            thinks it will work

now there is always BALANCE in nature.

that means if an affect works one way it can also
work another.

ie, if you accept the fact that placebo can CURE illness
you have to accept the fact that it can CAUSE illness.

can telling someone they have a disease manifest that disease.
the mind is far more powerfull that most people know.

example of this is if you have acne by not looking in the
mirror and fiddling with your face it can be cleared up in
a couple of weeks --> Milton Erickson.

you won't find information like this, but i'm sure it
will upset a few drug companies.

so is diagnosis a killer, well it's certainly a possibility

ebzzzz

[Donnah]

Depends on how much mule you have in you.  When the doctor told me I'd never recover from FM I said "watch me".  The negative suggestions that concern me more are the ones we hear on a daily basis like "money doesn't grow on trees", "you're stupid", "I can't remember sh*t", "I can't sleep", "I'm fat", and the one that shrivels a child's self esteem "who do you think you are?".

[neilep]

Donnah, frogive me but what is the 'FM' you were diagnosed with ?....what ever it is, I for one am glad you recovered...well done.

'Men are the same as women...just inside out !'

[ebzZzZ (OP)]

I thought this text from Milton Erickson really
shows the power of thought and suggestion. worth
a read may change your veiw on a few things about
life, certainly make you think questions about
yourself. certainly did when i read his books
and works

he was the most promanent phyciatrist who
used hypnosis in varying degrees and forms
to huge success including olympic gold
medal winning athletes.


SKIN CONDITIONS

A woman doctor from the East called me up and said,
"My son's a student at Harvard and he has an extremely bad case of acne. Can you treat that with hypnosis?"
I said, "Yes. Why bother bringing him to me? How are you
going to spend Christmas vacation?"
She said, "I usually take a vacation from medical practice and
go to Sun Valley and ski."
I said, "Well, this Christmas vacation, why don't you take your son with you? Find a cabin and remove all mirrors in it. You can eat your meals in that cabin, and be sure that you keep your hand mirror in the safety pocket of your purse."
They spent the time skiing and the son couldn't see a mirror. His acne cleared up in two weeks' time.
   
Now, acne can be cured by removing all mirrors. Rashes on the face or eczema often disappear in the same way. Another patient, a woman with warts on both hands, deforming warts, came to see me. Her face was also a mess of warts. She said she wanted to get rid of them by hypnosis. If you know anything about medicine, you know that warts are caused by a virus and also that warts are very susceptible to changes in blood pressure. I told the woman to soak her feet, first in ice-cold water, then in water as hot as she could stand, and then in ice-cold water again. She was to do that three times a day, until she was so annoyed that she'd give anything not to have to do it. When she had lost her warts she could forget about soaking her feet.

Now, it would be an annoying thing for her to have to interrupt the day's procedures to soak her feet and to keep this up in a scheduled manner. Some three years later, this woman brought her son to me. I asked her about her warts. She said, "What warts?"

I said, "You came to see me, about three years ago, for treatment of warts on your hands and face."
She said, "You must be mistaking me for another person She had obeyed my suggestion. She had soaked her feet for months, as her husband confirmed. Then she got so disgusted;: it, she forgot about soaking her feet, thereby forgetting about the warts. Since she was no longer worrying about her warts, the blood supply was cut down by the blood drawn to her feet and by her lack of attention to them. So she lost them all.



--> In the treatment of skin conditions by changing a person’s  focus of attention, Erickson is illustrating the dictum that Paracelsus expounded in the fifteenth century: "As man imagines himself  to be, so shall he be, and he is that which he imagines." The really are physical effects associated with mental imagery. The effects can be attained inside of the body also, but they simply a more demonstrable on the skin. The most obvious examples a blushing when we think about an embarrassing situation, or the development of an erection when we fantasize an erotic image A person who imagines himself as worthy holds himself erect at moves decisively and confidently. Is it, then, surprising that his skeletal structure, muscle tone, and facial expression develop quite differently from those of someone who "imagines" or images himself to be a nonentity?

[chris]

It's all very well being philosophical about these things, but I can't see many cases of bowel cancer clearing up if surgeons agree unilaterally to ditch their endoscopes and stop screening people, or prostate cancer evaporating if urologists stop checking PSA levels !

I do, however, strongly agree with your sentiments about the power of the mind - the placebo effect is indisputable.

Psychological distress manifests itself in myriad ways in the body and no 2 people are alike. Some people find that they get stomach aches and irritable bowel syndrome, others get spots or acne outbreaks, some people develop insomnia whilst others get anxiety attacks and tremors. A further group resort to retail therapy and chocolate binging. Stress finds a different outlet in all of us.

Chris

"I never forget a face, but in your case I'll make an exception"
 - Groucho Marx

[chris]

A funny thing that I forgot to relate - since the title of this thread is "diagnosis is a killer" - happened to me when I was working at a hospital in London.

I admitted an old granny through A/E with the symptoms of kidney failure (renal failure). Her aggressive (I'll sue your arse off if you so much as say one word out of line then ask questions later) relatives turned up a few days later demanding an explanation as to what was wrong with her, and to whinge that she'd had to wait on a trolley for about 4 hours, then complain about the general cleanliness of the hospital.

Resorting to my best social skills I attempted to explain to the litigious crew what was the matter. When I had told them that she had got renal failure their response "well she didn't have that when she came in here" !

Thinking about it I suppose that she didn't. She was "non-specifically unwell" according to her GP. It was me that (with the benefit of blood tests and ultrasound scans) that gave her kidney disease (in the eyes of her relatives at least) !

"I never forget a face, but in your case I'll make an exception"
 - Groucho Marx

[bezoar]

And on that same line, I had a girlfriend who's father had a Whipple procedure for cancer.  Knowing him like they did, they didn't tell him he had cancer and he not only recuperated from the surgery, but lived about another fifteen years and ultimately died of a heart attack.  They know that once he heard the word concer he'd give up, so they just kept it from him.  I'd always believed it was best to be honest with your patients, but that case gave me some doubt.

[Quantumcat]

Hey that's like that german movie that had stalin in the title, a woman was in a coma during that the wall was taken down and they had to keep it from her because any little stress could provoke another heart attack, of which she'd already had two ... it's a really good movie.

Am I dead? Am I alive? I'm both!

[bezoar]

Change is stressful -- even good change.

[tweener]

Chris, it sounds like you had a case where they wanted to shoot the messenger.  Too bad that's how things seem to be going.

----
John - The Eternal Pessimist.

[ebzZzZ (OP)]

the problem with modern medicine is they are missing
a whole level of complexity. how does the placebo affect
work at a cell level? there must be a link between
pyscology and cell function. what i mean by that is
how does telling someone something have an affect at
cellular level?

there must be away that information, or more correctly
patterns, can be distributed around the body to cells
for the placebo affect to work.

look to developement how do cells in a faetus know where
to go? random i don't think so, diffusion, to random.

there is definately something missing. how can the body
act with movement robotics research can only dream of
when all we see is a big bag of water, a few nerves and
DNA.

Is there something else, some other way our cells can
communicate with each other that we can't see?

now i read papers that show the parts of cells, organelles,
stay in position without any structure to support them. how
do they stay still? microtubules that grow in directions to
attach to other parts of the cell? what guides them?

adaptive mutation where bacteria AQUIRE coding to survive.

ie bacteria that can not metabolise lactose, milk sugar, aquire
a complex mutation in their genes to digest lactose, they choose
to live. look up J cairns harvard Boston School of public health
1985ish.

the increased gravitational interaction with living matter and
gravity. fact living things loose mass when they die. when they
are alive they interact with gravity more. explanations?

our studies of life are missing something, and i think that missings
something has a lot to do with quantum mechanics


ebzzz

[OldMan]

A friend of mine had a patient who was paralysed in a car accident and each day she had him writing down and saying "Today I can walk" or use my legs, things along those lines. After 5 weeks of doing this he was able to walk, only to a minor degree at first would be my guess but for someone being told its not likely they will walk again that is a pretty damn big step!

[tweener]

Stories abound of people using their mind to do things that would seem impossible for "normal" people.  Like passing their hands through fire and not getting burned.  Some seem very far fetched, and are likely embellishments on a somewhat lesser event.  But some of them are definitely true.  The mind has great power over how the body works and how it reacts to external and internal stimuli.  Facinating reading.

----
John - The Eternal Pessimist.

[Donnah]

quote:Originally posted by neilep@dsl.pipex.com

Donnah, frogive me but what is the 'FM' you were diagnosed with ?....what ever it is, I for one am glad you recovered...well done.

'Men are the same as women...just inside out !'

Oops, sorry Neil, I missed this one.  FM - fibromyalgia.

Mind over matter.  On March 5 a psychologist interviewed me to determine how I healed the "unhealable".  Interestingly, I posted on March 3, above that I said "watch me".  The psychologist told me that all the people she had interviewed who had survived/recovered from "killer" or "incurable" diseases used the exact same two words when they were given the diagnosis.  Intent is powerful, as is suggestion.