placebo effect

my mum has been making helluva lot of noise in recents days about painful joints at her hands and legs. and to help manage her pain, she would pull and bent her fingers non-stop through the day. in addition, she would pour the axe brand oil (hong you) onto her joints. her usage of the hong you was so high that she could finish 1 huge bottle a week. yup, a normal person would probably take 1-2 years to finish one huge bottle, but she did it in slightly less than a week. it was so bad that whenever i step into the house after work, the whole house would be filled with the hong you smell. and it was very choking. frankly, i never had such adverse reaction to the hong you smell until recently.  initially i tried to accomodate her complains and try to see how i could help her. but eventually after observing her for sometime, i concluded it was due to her idle mind and that she was simply trying to get attention. her complaints increased signficantly after my 2nd sis went overseas couple of days back. and it further confirmed my suspicion that her idle mind was creating all these issues for her cos my second sis has been the one who would visit her in the day to get her her lunch and teabreak.

this morning, she started throwing tantrums about her pains. she said it was unbearable and that she needed to see my family gp to get an injection. this has always been her belief - that my family gp was able to cure her of all pains cos he had done so before by giving her some injections. i was sure it was her mind again. over the past couple of years, whenever she complained of pain, the doctors (regardless of gp or the hospital) had always end up prescribing her with nothing more than panadol and that some doctors even suggested that it was psychological and that they could not do any further thing to help her. she kept on with her complaining and at one point, asked for me to give her taxi fare so that she could head to the gp herself. eventually, i gave in and drove her to the doctor. i decided that it would be easier to just drive her to the doctor and to fulfil her desire to see him.

this doctor had been my family's gp since the late 60's. he operated on me when i was 5years old. and when we moved to marine parade, we found that he had also opened a clinic there. and since then, we have gone to him whenever we need to consult a doctor. ok, back to the story. at the clinic, i explained to the doctor about her pain and all the history in pain management etc, and i told him that my mum claimed he could cure all her pains because he had done so before. he looked at me in my eyes, checked through his notes and told me this - that what he had previously given her was nothing more than vit b complex. there is really nothing more he could do because there is really nothing really wrong with her. he also shared that many elderly patients has similar complains and, like my mum, have the belief that doctors could do wonders for them. and he added that we should not underestimate this belief but have to go along with it as it would contribute directly to the patient's well-being. put simply, managing a patient's psychological well-being is part of the overall pain management strategy.

and with this, he looked at my mum and told her that he will once again give her the injection to make her strong (i noticed he did not say the injection will cure her of her pain). as he did so, he spoke of how good the medication was and how the one could smell the medication once the bottle is opened, etc. he then gave her the same vit b complex injection. as he administered the injection, i looked at my mum and for that moment, i felt sad for her... about 15min after the injection, as we sat at the coffee shop beside the clinic, my mum exclaimed in amazement how good the doctor and how effective the injection was. she then held out her palms, gave the twinkle twinkle little star gestures, and told me that all her pains had totally disappeared.

i looked at her. i kept quiet.

i continued drinking my coffee.