The Placebo Effect is Real or How I Fall for Medical Schemes

Last week was full of me marching around town in below freezing weather, from one medical appointment to another.

I've written before about my dental woes (tl;dr I have bad gums, have a rigorous dental regimen, and my teeth get professionally cleaned every three months). Last week, bright and early on Tuesday and Thursday mornings, I had to have yet another procedure done to my teeth. In the end, I was charged $1200 for this, given a bottle of mouthwash, and released to go on with my life with a numb mouth for the rest of the morning.

Let's discuss the mouthwash, shall we?

I assumed, when it was handed to me, that this was a mouthwash with some anti-bacterial properties, maybe some pain relief, or maybe it was just lots of alcohol. I assumed, of course, because I was a periodontist office.  As you can imagine, I was shocked when I opened the bag at home to find I had been charged $35 for homeopathic nonsense. In a periodontist's office!  When I went back on Thursday, I questioned the (poor, put upon) hygienist. What nonsense is this?  She explained to me that most of their clients do not use a rinse at all and this is basically just getting them to use something. I questioned why they didn't just give everyone a fancy Listerine or Scope bottle and she intimated that it was because the alcohol stings a bit and people stop using it. I questioned why she didn't just have them rinse with water.  She said it was because if people weren't given a product, they just didn't do it. I asked why I was given this placebo when I regularly use Listerine. She did not even try to answer. 

Ugh. I was so upset..

But the thing is that the rinse is actually quite pleasant. It feels soothing and cooling and so much better than the fiery feeling of Listerine.

And then there was the physical therapist.  I went bright and early (does everyone schedule their appointments first thing in the morning so they don't have to sit around dreading them all day?) Wednesday morning because I have been having some back pain for a few months that at first I could ignore because it was bad in the morning and would get better after walking the dog around the block, but eventually it started interfering with my sleep and the pain was taking longer and longer to go away, so anyway, here I am seeing a PT.

It turns out that there's a muscle in my right glute that's just sort of frozen in a tight ball and it needs to learn to be relaxed.  Yay! The PT suggests dry needling, which is like acupuncture, but is not based on opening up your chi, but is instead based on treating "trigger points." The research for dry needling is wishy-washy, but tends to lean favorably.  Anyway, PT puts a few needles in my muscle, sends an electric signal through the muscle and I kid you not, I feel the muscle relax so quickly and so immediately that the rest of my right leg starts twitching in response. I felt so loose and limber it was insane.  (Within twenty minutes, this muscle had locked up again, so it wasn't as if this was a permanent relief, but it was immediate relief.)

So here I am, falling for all the snake oil schemes in southeastern Wisconsin. If you have some essential oils you'd like to sell me to cure COVID, I'll be sure to strongly consider it.

What's your most embarrassing "I fell for it" story?