Have you ever been given a placebo?

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I'm curious.


My antidepressant brand name is RAN-CITALOPRAM, which is supposedly a generic form of Celexa/Cipramil/Cipram/Sepram/whatever. I'm wondering what it means.


How does one know what is the drug's intended effect, what is the drug's long-term side effect, what is the drug's short-term side effect and what is the placebo effect?


I heard on this board that antidepressants are statistically little better than placebos.


Does anyone here suspect that they were given a placebo? Or have their doctors admitted that they gave them a placebo, or whatever?


My doctor did look a little funny when I asked him if what he gave me was a placebo and he said "No, it's the real thing"... but maybe that was because I wasn't making eye contact because I was embarrassed about my wierd question.


Do they make placebos give you side effects to make them more realistic? Like putting something acidic in it to make you nauseous and burn the inside of your throat if it gets crushed into powder?


I find placebos a very interesting topic... I believe that they gave me the real thing, but a bit of healthy wondering never harmed anyone, right?

I'm pretty sure that if they're performing a trial, they'll inform you, and I don't think they perform any trials of already launched drugs. Generic means that it's a company making a drug whose patent has expired.

Placebos give people side effects for the same reason they give people positive effects, not because there's any physical reason for either.

That would kind of defeat the purpose of a placebo... If you KNOW you're getting a placebo, there's no longer any point to the trial. In double-blind studies, the doctor performing the experiment isn't even spposed to know whether you're getting the real drug or not!
And yes, they do have placebos with side effects to make them more realistic.

If they inform you you're in a trial, you won't KNOW you're getting a placebo, you'll know there's the possibility you're getting a placebo. Which is different. And I can't imagine it's legal to do an undisclosed study of experimental drugs.