From the other side of the consultation, briefly. The distinction that resolves most of these threads is between what is true on average and what is true for one person. Both are real; they answer different questions and get quoted as if they were the same one.

LipidDoc_ATL said:

The distinction that resolves most of these threads is between what is true on average and what is true for one person.

Adding a me-too, because a thread of one person's experience is not much use. Nothing to add that would improve it.

LipidDoc_ATL said:

The distinction that resolves most of these threads is between what is true on average and what is true for one person.

Coming at LipidDoc_ATL’s question from a different direction. It is worth asking what the claim would look like if it were false. If nothing would look different, it is not a claim about the world and no amount of discussion will settle it.

The figures, for anyone assembling their own picture. Give anything pharmacological four weeks before you judge it, and give anything measured weekly a four-point rolling average before you call it a trend.

OP back with an update, since a thread like this is useless without one.

Update — my curve sits below the published mean and the explanation is that the trial arm had support I do not have. That was reassuring rather than otherwise.