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A few days ago I read Chronic Tension Headaches: a detailed self-help guide (I highly recommend his site for anyone struggling with chronic pain). In it, the author mentions that one cause of chronic headaches is wearing glasses that don’t fit your prescription.
Since I haven’t had an eye exam in five years, this instantly shot up my list of possible causes of chronic headache. And let me tell you, if I have had daily painful headaches for over a year because I’ve been wearing glasses that don’t fit, I will be overjoyed and will also feel like a complete moron.
I will also be extremely irritated at all my doctors, who saw I was wearing glasses and did not any point go “hey, did you have a recent eye exam? Out-of-date glasses prescriptions can cause daily chronic headache.”
This is not the first such stupid cause of chronic illness I’ve learned about. For example:
- If you have anxiety, and you drink a lot of coffee, the coffee might be causing your anxiety. It’s a stimulant and stimulants cause anxiety.
- If you are depressed and you live in a place that doesn’t get a lot of light part of the year, try sitting in front of a light box.
- If you are depressed and no antidepressant is working, ask politely if you’ve been screened for hypothyroidism, anemia, and vitamin deficiencies, all of which are known to cause depression.
- If you’re depressed and you can’t see a doctor, and you are pale, weak, and tired, and experience the compulsion to eat ice or dirt or something else that isn’t food (pica), take an iron supplement and see if it helps.
- Similarly, try taking a multivitamin and see if it helps.
So I thought this open thread might be a good idea. What are some stupid treatments for chronic illness? When I say “stupid treatments”, I mean:
- It is little-known and medical professionals might not tell you about it (so not medication, therapy for mental illness, etc).
- It is relatively easily testable (so not “try this extremely complicated routine for six months and if it doesn’t work it’s your fault for not adhering to it”).
- It is a treatment, not a thing you should have done three years ago to prevent your chronic illness.
- When you hear about it, it makes you slap yourself on the head and go “duh.”
Since this topic is particularly likely to attract pseudoscience, I would like to lay out the following commenting guidelines:
- All suggested treatments must fit the definition of “stupid treatment” above.
- Your suggested treatment can treat at most three things. I will delete all comments about how a particular supplement, diet, or Traditional Chinese Medicine practice can cure everything from low back pain to diabetes to hair loss to insufficiently attractive feet.
- When talking about diets, all links should be to peer-reviewed scientific studies and not to websites of people advocating for the diet. If weight loss is recommended, you must provide a specific reason to believe that losing weight specifically will help, which is not “everyone knows that being fat is bad for you.”
- Known pseudoscience and quackery will be deleted at my discretion, unless the commenter both (a) acknowledges that this is pseudoscience and (b) either:
- Provides a plausible biological mechanism based on what we know of how the human body works
- Links to a systemic review or meta-analysis from a reasonably reputable journal (not The Journal of Acupuncture and Meridian Studies or The Journal of Poetry Therapy) that suggests the treatment will work.
Thing of Things 
In one of the more egregious failures of homeostasis I’m aware of, human bodies apparently sometimes respond to overly-low sodium levels by making people thirstier, thereby driving us to wash out sodium even faster and feedback-looping towards ever-greater thirst and ever-lower sodium. I was told this only after about six months of chronic sickness and near-constant thirst, during which the various doctors I visited about it had consistently given me the generic “try drinking more water” advice (which was, in this case, actively counterproductive).
The solution presented to me, when the hospital finally caught what was going wrong—I’m not sure how universally-advised this is, but it worked very well in my particular case—was to drink less, and thus break the feedback loop and be able to start rebuilding my sodium reserves. I dropped from drinking about 300oz/day to drinking about 60oz/day, and it was unpleasantly thirst-exacerbating in the short-term, but within about two weeks I was less constantly thirsty than I’d been before the change in drinking habit and the mental-health subsets of my chronic sickness were noticeably receding. (In retrospect, the physical-health subsets were too, although it took longer to confirm that confidently; I spent the following half-year sick for maybe a couple weeks in total, as contrasted with the previous half-year where I’d been sick for about four months out of six.)
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Huh, if it’s specifically insufficient sodium, would more salt have helped? Or would your thirstiness upregulate and wash that out anyway?
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I didn’t think to add extra salt into my diet until after I’d already gone a month or two with the reduced water-intake rate, so I’m not sure.
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This is sort of a…lack of a treatment? And the condition wasn’t quite chronic, but…I used to get severe, long-lasting cold symptoms (sore throat, cough, runny nose) on a regular basis. After many years of this I finally noticed the connection: That happened every time I got annoyed with my long nose hairs and plucked them. Not sure if that was causing inflammation, infections, or what, but whatever it was it stopped once I started using a nose hair trimmer.
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If you are diagnosed with a curable sexually transmitted disease and have an active sex partner, you may avoid reinfection if your partner is treated as well. The doctor may just treat you and not mention that your partner may need treatment as well. Don’t ask how I know.
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Love this idea!! Personal anecdotes, from most to least fitting the description of “stupid treatments”:
– Posture for TMJ/shoulder pain – I had chronic jaw pain radiating down my shoulders for two years. I saw a couple specialists who told me to take 1,800mg of ibuprofen a day and apply a warm compress. At no point did they suggest posture could be a cause, but the pain completely went away within a month of stopping doing all of my studying slouched in bed.
– Caffeine for headaches – I had headaches/migraines so bad I threw up. Taking caffeine nipped the headaches in the bud so they stopped before they got bad.
– Biofreeze for RSI – More of a symptom aid than an actual treatment, Biofreeze is a gel that numbs the pain in my hands so that it doesn’t bother me while I let them rest before resuming typing.
– <67F for sleep – Sleeping in a cool room (60-67F) has been the most beneficial sleep hygiene tip for me. If I’m tossing and turning, turning on the AC will send me to a deeper sleep. One of the body’s “sleep signals” is blood flowing to the skin and the core temperature dropping, and sleeping in a cool room plausibly aids sleep by augmenting this process. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3427038/
– Wellbutrin for fatigue – I’m not at all confident this generalizes, but it’s worth thinking considering and your doctor won’t suggest it. Wellbutrin has been helpful for fatigue even when not clearly or consistently showing other symptoms of depression, so it might be useful as a treatment for chronic fatigue symptoms. However, the symptoms of depression and fatigue are closely enough related that it’s possible that the fatigue in these anecdotal cases was caused by depression even though other symptoms weren’t measurably present. The anecdotal cases reported noticing an improvement in fatigue within a week of starting Wellbutrin.
– Salt and exercise doses POTS – For people with POTS (most often characterized by fainting several times a day), doctors will always recommend exercise and increased salt/water intake, but they (annoyingly) almost never volunteer specific recommendations for how much salt/water or how to exercise. Politely ask them for dose suggestions if they don’t recommend one. Then actually measure your salt and water intake to check against the dose. I think the starting dose is usually 3-5 grams of salt and two liters of water per day. Similarly, for exercise, ask your doctor how to calculate your heart rate zones and for specific exercise suggestions. If they don’t have other suggestions, you can try this plan http://www.dysautonomiainternational.org/pdf/CHOP_Modified_Dallas_POTS_Exercise_Program.pdf
– Adderall for POTS?? – I’ve read about Adderall being used to treat POTS directly as a vasoconstrictor and indirectly to reduce brain fog, but my general doctor hasn’t heard of this. I’d love to hear details about anecdotal cases or doctors’ recommendations if other people have details.
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This isn’t exactly a viable “treatment” unless you’re AFAB and confident that you want the whole package of effects, but: before I started testosterone, I was constantly lightheaded and fatigued, my resting heart rate hovered in the 90s, and my hemoglobin levels hung out right at the bottom of the reference range. Now, I have more energy, my blood pressure is 120/80, my resting heart rate is 80bpm, and I have enough hemoglobin that I could theoretically donate blood! …except my veins are crap and I’d have to lie about being gay. Testosterone did more to lower my heart rate than the drug I used to take that was actually for that. I feel much, much healthier.
So if you’re transmasc and also generically feel like shit all the time, consider trying to start HRT sooner rather than later.
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a) Cis men also apparently frequently benefit from T
b) In this vein, if you are a transfem on Spiro, consider switching to Bicalutamide. It is vastly more effective as an antiandrogen and does not have the same effects of bloated abdomens, cognitive clouding, frequent urination, or lowered blood pressure. It changed my life!
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I have always suffered from allergies, asthma, etc. Recently, due to the bad air from the wildfires, I replaced the filter on my furnace with a top-of-the-line one, and set the system to just cycle air for 30 mins every hour (no A/C or heat). Not only did it help with the noticeable air quality issues, it also seems to have majorly reduced some runny nose/allergies that I have been struggling with for years.
If you have access to your central air system, I highly recommend replacing/upgrading the air filters and cycling air regularly (which might require a specific kind of thermostat, but mine allowed the setting). Even the “high quality” MERV 13 filter was only about $10 and it lasts 60-90 days. There are standalone air filters you can get for apartments that I can’t speak to, but I was surprised at how effective the central filter was at helping my general sinus/lung issues.
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Note, however, that higher MERV rated filters by their very nature are more restrictive of airflow. Many HVAC systems aren’t engineered for anything other than fiberglass filters (~MERV 2) and use of more restrictive filters can cause problems with airflow that jeopardize the entire HVAC unit.
If you’re a homeowner, I wouldn’t recommend doing this until after consulting with an HVAC professional.
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More sleep for chronic headache. Hasn’t fixed my life but really, sleep matters and doesn’t always get mentioned.
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Someone I know well started feeling always tired and went to two doctors for help. One doctor recommended Vitamin D and at my suggestion this person also took a desiccated liver pill each day. The chronic tiredness quickly went away. https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00UM9X3DK/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1
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I occasionally wake up with a “charley horse” which is an intense pain in one of my legs. While the pain quickly goes away, having such a “charley horse” would reduce my mobility for a few days. A treatment I read on Wikipedia solved the mobility problem: Immediately get out of bed and stand just on the one leg that has the “charley horse” until the leg no longer hurts.
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For chronic neck/back problems (and headaches resulting from a stiff neck): try sitting in a different chair or different spot on the couch (for at least a few days; not just a few minutes). I am guaranteed to get a stiff neck and headache if I look at a screen under certain angles for a while, bit they may only appear after the movie is already over, obscuring the relationship.
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I find that fish oil prevents cold sores, for me at least. Plausible basis, erm… inflammation suppression? (Mori, Trevor A., and Lawrence J. Beilin. “Omega-3 fatty acids and inflammation.” Current atherosclerosis reports 6.6 (2004): 461-467.)
Alcohol causes sleep disruption, some cognitive impairment and poor mood the following day as a result. If you drink a lot and/or less than 6 hours before sleep it may help with brain fog/depression symptoms (Ebrahim, Irshaad O., et al. “Alcohol and sleep I: effects on normal sleep.” Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research 37.4 (2013): 539-549.)
Tobacco / nicotine can treat IBS. I know more than a couple of people who came down with serious IBS after quitting smoking (Sykes, A. P., et al. “An investigation into the effect and mechanisms of action of nicotine in inflammatory bowel disease.” Inflammation Research 49.7 (2000): 311-319.)
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Ohh I love this thread.
– Potassium for eczema. I used to regularly get eczema across my forehead/ears/back. I read somewhere that a lot of Americans are deficient in potassium, so started drinking coconut water most days, which has mostly prevented outbreaks. If I stop, my eczema returns within a week. It could be something else in the coconut water, but I did see a study that showed a link between potassium and eczema, I just don’t have it handy.
– if you have GERD, try eating less at each meal. Not necessarily reducing your calories all in, just stop stuffing yourself full. I went to a few doctors and none recommended this, but being conscious of how much I’m eating and stopping when I’m full makes a huge difference.
– if you have RSI from typing, consider making the room warmer. Cold hands while typing massively exacerbates any RSI. Also, I did actually get this from an OT, but try strengthening and stretching exercises.
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Related to the RSI from typing thing: I wear arthritis gloves when typing a lot of the time (unless it’s hot enough that it’s physically uncomfortable to wear them) and it clears it right up, for basically the same reason: Improving circulation in your hands reduces RSI.
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What brand of arthritis gloves do you recommend?
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Honestly they’re all much the same – they’re just fingerless compression gloves, and there’s only so many ways to make those. The ones I happen to use are Bodytec (these: https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B00DP4D2TO ), but that’s not a well thought out decision and I’ve used a few others and they’re all basically interchangeable. I’d recommend going for a cheap brand that you can buy lots of, because I find I’m constantly losing them. Don’t get the ones with copper embedded in them because that’s pure woo which adds to the price will doing nothing useful.
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Awesome, I ordered some cheap ones. Will message if they help my RSI!
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Good luck! Hope they help.
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When going outside during pollen season, vacuuming, or otherwise getting exposed to airborne allergens/irritants to which you’re susceptible, wear a mask. I used to use surgical masks, but it turns out surgical-shaped cloth masks work well too.
If you find the mask helps somewhat but not entirely, two things to try:
Shape the mask nosepiece onto your face very, very tightly. I find that autumn pollen, in particular, will get in through the slightest crack.
Consider whether you should be wearing the mask in more situations. Notably, if you work near a front door that people are frequently going in and out of, you may need to count your workplace as “being outside”.
(I assume this is little-known because I never see anyone else wearing pollen masks. I’m not sure whether my doctor would have told me about it because I’d already figured it out before seeing her about this, but she did seem surprised that I’d thought of it.)
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(Looks like I’m not allowed to use bullet-point HTML here. Well, close enough.)
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I have long standing chronic pain in my right leg – like, literally all of the joints have had dull aches in them for some large fraction of the last decade. Started in my hip and all the other joints eventually joined the party.
Apparently what I need to do to all but solve it is:
1. Wear exclusively barefoot shoes (not the creepy toe ones. I use vivo barefoots which look mostly normal) or go barefoot so I build up arch strength
2. Take a daily glucosamine supplement to help repair wear and tear on the joints.
Either on their own helps, but the two together seem to help a lot – previously I spent most days with some pain and some days with a lot of pain, now I spend most days with no pain and some days with mild pain.
I have to admit, I’m a little skeptical that the glucosamine helps (the science on it is iffy, but I wouldn’t necessarily expect the science on it to be good even if it worked for incentives reasons) but it anecdotally seems to help – I thought the barefoot shoes were enough on their own so didn’t top up my glucosamine supply when it ran out and the pain came back. I’ve since resumed and it’s gradually going away again. Still, might be a placebo.
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There’s a thread on /r/slatestarcodex discussing this post which has attracted some other stupid treatments in the comments: https://www.reddit.com/r/slatestarcodex/comments/iukq9m/open_thread_stupid_treatments_for_chronic_illness/
(For those ctrl-F’ing this thread, things that have been mentioned so far include sleep, muscle cramps or tightness, depression, anxiety, jitters or anxiety with caffeine intake, high sugar intake with liquids, poor standing posture, wrist pain/RSI, fatigue, physical therapy, joint pain, light boxes, subacromial impingement (shoulder pain).)
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I have treated my IBS through chronic administration of OTC loperamide (Imodium).
This is an extremely stupid treatment, because it just means taking the standard, recommended antidiarrheal all the time—which, it turns out, is a great treatment for having diarrhea all the time (or, at least, extremely frequently).
I had to do something extra, though: I take double the recommended adult one-time dose once a day. (I’m actually within the recommended daily dose.) Since I’m ~300lbs, it makes a lot of sense that I had to use more than the “standard adult dose”, which I assume is normalized around 180lbs or so—but the first time I tried this treatment, I used the standard dose and that didn’t work. Failing to up my dose cost my at least half a decade of serious, life-disrupting inconvenience and crazy poops. These days I do not have that problem, except when I get my pill schedule screwed up.
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it’s worth noting I’m coming up on my second year using this treatment plan and have experienced significant long-term symptom management without any side-effects that I’ve noticed.
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I’m pretty sure I have heard of this as a treatment for people with some conditions where they have excessive gut motility — e.g. people who have had part of their colon removed.
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If you have low blood pressure, say because you are taking a blood-pressure-reducing medication without having high blood pressure, you may want to eat more salt.
If you are drinking a lot of water to compensate for sweat, definitely have some salt.
If you’re overheated, spraying yourself with a refrigerated spray bottle of water is a particularly effective way to take advantage of evaporative cooling and not be soaked afterwards.
If you have been told to take iron with vitamin-C-rich foods, but scheduling your vitamin-C-rich foods is hard, take the iron with a vitamin C supplement, which unlike produce does not taste better with calcium-rich products or spoil quickly. I wouldn’t call this a diet, and I don’t have diet-grade citations for it.
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You can also get iron tablets that contain a few hundred milligrams of vitamin C.
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If you get acid reflux at night, try sleeping on your left side instead of your right. Your stomach is offset a little to the left side and your esophagus has a leftward curve to it, so sleeping this way helps keep things down.
You may be able to cure a hiatal hernia by drinking a couple glasses of water to get some weight in your stomach and then jumping.off of something. Worked for me.
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In college, I had chronic diarrhea for 3 months. One day I decided to meticulously record every single piece of food I ate and over a week and a clear pattern emerged. I always had diarrhea exactly 3 hours after eating a deep fried banana ball.
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Quitting wearing high heels (even relatively “low” ones) unexpectedly cured not only my mild knee pain, but also my periodically severe chronic neck and upper back pain.
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Here’s a stupid treatment I have to remind myself of each time I use it because I so often forget about it: If you’re feeling “generically crappy” – you know, the sort of feeling you get while ill with a cold (I get this a lot, mostly due to a bad immune system but sometimes in general) – but don’t have a fever or a headache, try taking some ibuprofen anyway. Chances are decent that that feeling is inflammation linked and taking an anti-inflammatory will help it.
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Not that stupid, but massage can be really good for chronic pain. See painscience.com
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Two I encountered personally in the last couple years:
1) Something I learned recently from my _dentist_, of all people: chronic headache, especially with associated neck pain, can be caused by jaw tension. Jaw tension can be a direct result of clenching your jaw in your sleep, which is a common side effect of stimulants, including caffeine and ADHD meds. If you get headaches with neck pain frequently, and you use caffeine, take ADHD meds, or narcolepsy meds like modafinil, consider stopping/reducing your use of those.
2) If you get tension/pain in your upper back, in addition to massaging your back/shoulders/neck, try massaging the corresponding muscles on your front — pectorals, deltoids, etc. I self-massage these areas by standing facing a wall, placing a lacrosse ball at my chest height, and then leaning into the ball while moving in circles to roll the ball around — first on my right half (with my right hand behind my back to stretch the muscles further), and then on my left half (with my left hand behind my back.) I used to get really bad neck/upper back tension that I couldn’t seem to relieve or prevent by massaging my back, and it’s gotten way better since I started massaging my front as well. A physical therapist told me that the back muscles can get tense by compensating for the equivalent front muscles if they’re too tight.
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Search for your diagnosis in UpToDate every so often to see if your doctor missed anything. This should help with just about everything.
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I’ve been having strange headaches for the past 3 days that hurt the most when I bend over, happening near my left temple. Today, a HUGE glob of earwax fell out of my left ear. Now I’m not have headaches.
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*having
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I enjoyed this post. Thanks for sharing!
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