So what's the big deal?
Occasionally, someone says to me something along the lines of, "so what if Dr. Frank's No Pain Spray doesn't work? If it's just water, it can't hurt!" They also say that even if the No Pain Spray's "relief" is only caused by the placebo effect, it at least works and so I should just shut the hell up.
These people are missing the point. Joint pain is your body's way of telling you that there is something wrong with your joints. When that happens, you need a doctor, not false hope or the placebo effect. That's why I'm opposed to people spending money on Dr. Frank's No Pain Spray - it's money that they could be using to seek real treatment for what ails them.
A similar, and I think even worse, example of Dr. Frank's irresponsibility is another product of his:
Dr. Frank's Allergy Relief Oral Spray. The allergy spray is another homeopathic remedy by Dr. Frank, a mixture of eight homeopathic ingredients that is meant for use on all your indoor and outdoor allergies.
I called this irresponsible, and I meant it. In the case of the No Pain Spray, the only negative will be that your joint pain will not get better, and may even get worse if the placebo effect benefits induce you to some physical activity that you might have otherwise avoided. This is bad, yes, but what about people who use the allergy spray for a mold allergy? Ignoring your body's allergic response based on the vain hope that a bottle of water will help make you feel better strikes me as dangerous, and Dr. Frank is irresponsible for telling people that his allergy spray will stop their allergic responses.
Just to clarify
The post below doesn't mean that the blog is 'over', but that the No Pain Challenge is over. I still plan on taking numerous, gratuitous potshots at Dr. Frank and at homeopathy in general, just as soon as grad school calms down a bit. Maybe this weekend.
In case anyone is actually reading this blog, don't stop! It might get good soon...maybe.
It's Over!
So the silver bottle is empty. I just opened the sealed envelope, and it looks like the Dr. Frank's No Pain Spray was in the red bottle, which I tried first. Without further ado, let's get to some questions that I asked myself about the study. You know, in case you wanted to know these things too.
Did it work?No. No it did not. At no time in the last two weeks or so did I experience any kind of significant relief from my joint pain. In fact, I think I experienced significantly more pain than usual, since I was thinking about what hurt all the time. Over the years I've gotten pretty good at just ignoring my pain; I couldn't do that during this trial, and it was unpleasant.
What does Dr. Frank's No Pain Spray taste like?Mostly sugar water, with a slight cough syrup aftertaste. Your mileage may vary.
How much money did you waste on this 'No Pain Challenge'?One bottle of Dr. Frank's No Pain Spray (200 sprays) costs $19.95. I also bought two identical spray bottles for $.99 each. Oh, and I almost forgot! I also paid the shipping & handling on a (free) little book by Dr. Frank (that was a lot smaller than I thought it would be) because I thought making fun of it would be entertaining. Plus, it will give me something to write about on this blog now that the challenge is done.
Should I (meaning you) buy Dr. Frank's No Pain Spray?I'm not a doctor, and therefore am totally unqualified to give medical advice. But since Dr. Frank's No Pain Spray is pretty much just sugar water, I think I'm safe in saying that you probably should not buy it.
Will you try to get your money back?Good question. I haven't decided yet. I bought it more than 30 days ago, so I suspect that trying will be more trouble than it's worth since they only offer a 30-day guarantee. Still, maybe I can make a weekend out of going to Santa Barbara, playing some golf, and standing on Dr. Frank's doorstep yelling at him until he gives me twenty bucks. I like Santa Barbara.
Leave any other questions you have in the comments, and I will do my best to answer them.
Tags: Dr. Frank's No Pain Spray, homeopathy, joint pain
Silver bottle, day 5
Today is my fifth day of spraying the stuff in the silver bottle under my tongue 36 times per day, which probably means that this trial will be over tomorrow evening (if there was the same amount of liquid in each of these bottles). So, how am I doing?
Well, I almost stopped this experiment this morning; I honestly didn't think I would be able to walk to work if I didn't take some ibuprofen or something. Part of this experiment is not taking any drugs for joint pain other than Dr. Frank's No Pain Spray, so that I can really judge its effectiveness on managing (or, hopefully, eliminating) my pain.
This morning, I could barely move my left knee. It was swollen as hell and it was painful when I moved it in certain ways. It could be from playing basketball earlier in the week, although I play basketball twice a week and my knee usually doesn't respond like this. My other guess would be that it's going to rain tonight or tomorrow; sometimes an impending weather change will mess with that knee. Either way, it hurt like a bastard, and I almost took something for the pain.
Hey, I said almost! I toughed it out and made it to work, so that the no pain challenge can run its conclusion. In addition to the knee thing this morning, my jaw was still sore and my right ankle is not feeling too great. My hands are OK, if a little stiff. Certainly I have not experienced the reduction in joint pain that I would have hoped for by this point. In a whole-body sort of sense, I feel pretty decent today, better than the last couple of days, anyway.
So there's that. More tomorrow, especially if the silver bottle runs dry and I can find out which bottle was which.
Day 3 - Silver Bottle
So this is my third day of taking whatever's in the silver bottle. So far, I haven't noticed any major effect. My right knee was killing me this morning on my walk to the office, which is kind of new - that one hasn't hurt for a few days. My left knee felt OK.
I certainly wouldn't say that this one provided the "immediate relief" that Dr. Frank suggests that some people might experience. We'll see if a few more days worth makes any difference.
Tags: Dr. Frank's No Pain Spray, joint pain, homeopathy
I Take Requests, Apparently
Commenter FeLiXe said this the other day:
FeLiXe said...
actually I would like to add something: your answer suggests that you haven't read much about homeopathy. but you start a blog opposing it.
you've probably run across a lot of people who are against the use of any "chemical" without having taken any chemistry course. Please make sure you are not doing the same with homeopathy.
It would be cool if you took one day to write about the principles of homeopathy and what "treating with the same means".
Well, FeLiXe, I have in fact read a fair amount about homeopathy, and I feel like I have a pretty good understanding of what it is. If you want a book report, though, I will be happy to provide one. More people should be exposed to the true beliefs of homeopaths.
Homeopathy was started in the early 1800s by Samuel Hahnemann, a German physician. Hahnemann was working with the principle of "like curing like". The idea is this: if you have a disease that gives you certain symptoms, you should be cured by a minute dose of a compound that would produce the same symptoms if given in a large dose. The law of similars is a very old idea, one that was practiced by ancient peoples in Greece, Asia and the Americas, but Hahnemann was the first (supposedly) to attempt to quantify the principle.
Hahnemann was inspired by the successful attempts of earlier doctors to treat malaria with
Peruvian bark. Peruvian bark contains the alkaloid
quinine, which is found in small amounts in tonic water and also has anti-malarial properties. Hahnemann started taking the bark until, at large doses, it started giving him symptoms similar to those produced by malaria (fever, chills, and other symptoms). He concluded that other doctors had been able to use quinine to fight malaria because it produced similar symptoms to the disease.
In fact, quinine (and similar drugs) can be used to treat malaria because they bind strongly to blood proteins and form complexes which are toxic to the parasite (
Plasmodium falciparum) that causes malaria. While the case of quinine has an explanation that's consistent with evidence-based medicine, the principle of healing with similars is central to homeopathy.
The idea here, according to the homeopath
Dr. Mercola, is that "he minute dose [of something that cause symptoms similar to those they are already experiencing] will stimulate the body's own healing powers without side effects." A 2003
study gave some hope to homeopaths who believe that these small amounts of the compounds will leave their imprint on the hydrogen bonds in water, even if they are diluted so much that there is no chance that any medicine will be left in the water (see
this article for a review of the math that applies to the dilution of homeopathic medicines). Unfortunately for the homeopaths, the study was not blinded and the claims of repeatability weren't actually backed up by anything. Any conclusions drawn from the study should remain firmly in doubt until the issues of repeatability are settled.
Almost every clinical trial of homeopathic remedies and the principle of curing by similars that I've heard of has been a failure, with no effects distinguishable from the placebo effect. According to science, homeopathy isn't actually a medical treatment (except for maybe treating dehydration and low blood sugar). Of course, this sort of evidence does not really matter to homeopaths, especially those who are trying to sell a homeopathic remedy. They usually just say that science can't show how homeopathy works
yet, and in time it will be shown to be just as good as evidence based medicine. This claim is certainly not fallacious (since it's impossible to disprove that something may eventually happen, given enough time), and people can make it if they want, but they are doing so in spite of all available evidence, specifically, that clinical trials don't show that homeopathy works for treating disease.
Similarly, if you decide to spend your money on a homeopathic joint pain remedy like Dr. Frank's No Pain Spray (or any other homeopathic remedy), you should know that there is no evidence that it will do anything for your pain, let alone for the serious underlying problems that are indicated by the pain. You can find tons of anecdotal evidence saying that it will work, and if that does it for you then go ahead and buy a bottle. Just don't buy two, OK? Try it for yourself and see if it works for you - that's what it comes down to anyway. I can't tell you what to do, I can just give you some information and let you make a decision.
I do plan to give a recommendation after this challenge is over, though. Should be about six days from now.
Tags: Dr. Frank's No Pain Spray, joint pain, homeopathy, Samuel Hahnemann
Silver bottle, day 1
After a day of sprays from the silver bottle, I can't say all that much is different. My left knee is pretty swollen lately, and so it hurts as it tends to do. My jaw is also still cracking and crunching, and my fingers are aching a little bit.
In fact, I've been in a lot more pain than usual over the last week, and I blame it directly on these sprays. See, I'm usually quite good at ignoring any joint pain I may be having. I just put it out of my mind, and go on with my day. I notice my knees, but the rest of it pretty much stays in the background. Since I'm trying to judge the effectiveness of Dr. Frank's No Pain Spray, though, I've been focusing more on what hurts and when, and it's kind of getting old. I'm really looking forward to whatever is in the silver bottle working, or else this challenge ending. I'll be glad to go back to not thinking about my joint pain again.
Oh, and that post about the theory and history of homeopathy is coming one of these days, I promise.
Tags: Dr. Frank's No Pain Spray, joint pain, homeopathy
The red bottle is tapped
I finished the red bottle a couple minutes ago; basically I got six full days out of the liquid in that one. The verdict?
Eh. I don't feel much different. Jaw still hurts when I wake up, knees still hurt and pop like crazy when I stand, hands still hurt.
Whatever's in the red bottle, it certainly did not allow me to "spray away my pain". I will start the silver bottle tomorrow morning.
UPDATE: According to
this website that I just found, a bottle of Dr. Frank's No Pain Spray contains 200 sprays. If you don't achieve relief before the bottle runs out (which I did not in the case of the red bottle), you'll be using 36 sprays a day (6 sprays, 6 times per day), and the 200 sprays will last you for 5.55 days. That's exactly how long my red bottle lasted (both bottles were filled with the same amount of water/Dr. Frank's), so my fears that it would last an unusually short time for whatever reason were unfounded. This is exactly how long a bottle of Dr. Frank's No Pain Spray is supposed to last. If you're thinking of buying it, please keep that in mind.
Tags: Dr. Frank's No Pain Spray, joint pain, homeopathy
