Don't Discount the Placebo Effect

This was a strange story. A 60-year-old man, who lives out in the country, is suffering from knee pain. He consults with a neighbor, who advises him to try ...

WD-40.

As most of you probably know, WD-40 is a lubricant. I own some myself. It's good for freeing rusted machinery parts, stuck bolts, that kind of thing.

What happens when you apply it to your knee, repeatedly? Well, this man showed up at his doctor's office, complaining of his knee pain. The doctor noticed that the skin around his knees was "rough, reddish." It turns out he had been using the spray for months at that point.

You might think this is just a titillating story about something that a reasonable person would have the common sense not to do. But there's more to it than that.

The doctor told the man, of course, to stop spraying WD-40 on his knees, immediately. But what's interesting is that the patient reports that, when he first tried the lubricant, he "felt some relief," so he continued using it.

Felt some relief? From a smelly, petroleum-based chemical that's meant for things like lawnmower parts, not human skin (and what lies underneath)?

To me, this strongly suggests some kind of placebo effect. What's more, I'm convinced that there are a lot of suggested solutions for knee pain that involve the placebo effect.

I've never been convinced of the efficacy of glucosamine or chondroitin. Yet people swear by them. The placebo effect? I think that there's a high chance that's involved here.

I'm not sure the placebo effect is necessarily bad. If someone said to me, "On days, when I wake up and rub the belly of my lucky Buddha statuette, I have less knee pain," my response would be, "Keep rubbing the belly of your lucky Buddha."

Why not? A certain amount of pain is what we perceive on a subjective level. If we can somehow "trick" our brains into thinking there is less pain there, that doesn't seem like such a bad thing. But of course, the placebo effect works better on some than others. Sadly, I don't think it would help me much because of the way I am.

For others though, if something helps with your knee pain, and it's not doing harm to your body (or to your pocketbook, or at least not excessively), why not keep doing it?

Just don't spray WD-40 on your knees. Please.