Head Fake

The other night I had a headache. It was on the bad side of fun, but the good side of incapacitating. It didn't keep me up. Tremble the cat woke me up at 7ish the next morning and the headache was monstrous. It was nearby train tracks. It was bad conversation that you can't even hear but you know it's bad. It made movement offensive. It made chairs defensive. I did a visualization trick that I've used to wipe out past headaches, but no dice this time. I massaged my temples and did some energy work, which didn't kill it, but was enough to get me back to sleep.

When I woke up it was Tylenol Time. My understanding of pain-killers is that they shoot the messenger, not the message. Whatever was a problem is still a problem, but at least now you can't feel it. With that in mind, I told my body to try and work out whatever issues it was having while I blocked the pain with drugs. Shook out two pills, and already had the water ready to go (had been sipping since the night before). As I was about to take the first, I noticed my headache slipping away. I've noticed that with other drugs too- sometimes they hit you just before they hit you.

Just for kicks, I faked taking the pills to see what would happen. I picked up the first, pretended to swallow it, then repeated the process for the second pill. The headache was gone in 5 minutes. It didn't come back. The pills are still on the table.

The placebo effect is not something restricted to the control group of clinical trials. It happens every time your body expects something and reacts accordingly. More than a few sparrows and giraffes have trouble opening their noses to certain ideas about this. People can get drunk, pass out, even throw up from non-alcoholic beer as long as they think it's alcoholic. People on strong medications often develop side-effects not associated with the med (the "nocebo" effect). One person even cured his real measles by pretending to fling them off with a fake magic wand. Maybe I'm getting ahead of myself here. All I'm saying is that I got the effects of Tylenol by pretending to take it. I kept the song and dance, I just took out the actual drug. Drugs work, but it's not just chemistry- if it is then what the hell is up with the guy throwing up in the trash can after 5 O'douls? Bodies know how to heal themselves, they just need to be convinced that this is the time and place, and drugs can help with that. (So can other things.)

There's more to say about this, but I'll leave it at that for now. Rock over London. Rock home Chicago. Avocados: where would you be without them?