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Medical Hypnosis

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Ron Abbott "It must be completely understood that anytime I work with a client with a medically diagnosed condition, I will ONLY do so with their referring Physician’s complete knowledge, co-operation and approval."

"The natural healing force within each of us is the greatest force in getting well." - Hippocrates

"Hypnosis can be used very effectively for pain reduction. It can also be very useful in treating anxiety in people who are anxious. Hypnosis has been shown to be effective in helping people to stop smoking and in controlling overeating." David Spiegel, M.D. Associate Chairman of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Stanford University.


Hypnosis and Surgery: Past, Present, and Future
Albrecht H. K. Wobst, MD

Hypnosis has been defined as the induction of a subjective state in which alterations of perception or memory can be elicited by suggestion. Ever since the first public demonstrations of "animal magnetism" by Mesmer in the 18th century, the use of this psychological tool has fascinated the medical communityand public alike. The application of hypnosis to alter pain perception and memory dates back centuries. Yet little progress has been made to fully comprehend or appreciate its potential compared to the pharmacologic advances in anesthesiology.

Recently, hypnosis has aroused interest, as hypnosis seems to complement and possibly enhance conscious sedation. Contemporary clinical investigators claim that the combination of analgesia and hypnosisis superior to conventional pharmacologic anesthesia for minor surgical cases, with patients and surgeons responding favorably. Simultaneously, basic research of pain pathways involving the nociceptive flexion reflex and positron emission tomography has yielded objective data regarding the physiologic correlates of hypnosis. In this article I review the history, basic scientific and clinical studies, and modern practical considerations of one of the oldest therapeutical tools: the power of suggestion.

From the Department of Anesthesiology, University of Florida College of Medicine, Gainesville, Florida.
Address correspondence to Albrecht H. K. Wobst, MD, Department of Anesthesiology, PO Box 100254, Gainesville, FL 32610-0254. Address e-mail to awobst@anest.ufl.edu .


Discover Magazine, January 2005
"YOU WILL NOW FEEL BETTER….

As a surgeon who has used hypnotic techniques with patients, I heartily support psychiatrist David Speigel’s findings [“Hypnosis Works,” November]. I think that studies of the brain both under anesthesia and under hypnosis would show many similarities. I have been able to correct cardiac arrythmias, bleeding, rapid pulse rates, and other physiological problems by talking to anesthetized patients in a therapeutic way during surgical procedures and by using similar procedures preoperatively. Surgeons have also done major abdominal surgery on patients under hypnosis alone. Hypnotic and communication techniques can create positive results. The placebo effect is, in essence, a positive result of communication. I have had children go to sleep as they entered the operating room because I told them they would, and some have resisted hair loss from chemotherapy because we relabeled their vitamins “hair growing pills.” Just as we can heal with a scalpel, we can heal with words." Bernie Siegel, Woodbridge, Connecticut



Hypnosis can be used for pain management, emergencies, irritable bowel, pre-during-and after surgery, cancer treatment support, auto immune diseases, and simple everyday procedures and much more:

Hypnotherapeutic interventions are used for allergies, asthma, arthritis, cancer, cardiovascular disorders, chronic fatigue syndrome, diabetes, ulcers, colitis, headaches, hypertension and dermatological disorders and more;

Help clients eliminate anxiety and discomfort for surgery and other medical procedures

Alleviate side effects of chemo and radiation therapy and accelerate healing


Hypnosis for Dental procedures

Of course we use medical hypnosis or hypnotherapy for weight loss and losing weight naturally, and to stop smoking, however, there are many more possibilities. You can use hypnosis for stress management, pain management, to increase your immune system, overcome insomnia, Irritable Bowel Syndrome, pre-operative and intraoperative procedures, promote healing, skin conditions, phobias, anxiety and the list goes on and on.


Medical Hypnosis and the AMA

In 1958, the American Medical Association accepted Hypnosis as an adjunct to medical practice. In 1958 hypnosis was recognized by the American Medical Association as a legitimate, safe approach to medical and psychological problems. The American Psychiatric Association (APA), and the British Medical Association (BMA), has recognized hypnosis as a viable therapeutic tool as well. According to the AMA, within the decade virtually every outpatient surgery unit and clinic will be utilizing hypnosis. More than ever before, people are demanding alternatives to traditional medicine.

Alternative therapies are having an incredible impact on people's perception of health. A 1998 survey by Stanford University reported that 69% of all Americans use some form of complementary or alternative medicine. It is estimated they spend almost $28 billion a year on them - more than they spend out of pocket for conventional medicine. An American Medical Association study that same year showed U.S. adults made over 600 million visits to alternative practitioners - exceeding the number of visits made to primary care physicians. The medical community is now taking notice.


Mind over Medicine

Hypnosis as an alternative to sedation is making a comeback in the operating room. Here's how it works!


By SORA SONG

Time magazine article
Sunday, Mar. 19, 2006

Shelley Thomas, 53, was wheeled into an anteroom at London's Middlesex Hospital in preparation for pelvic surgery. A patient going into that operation is usually given a mix of painkilling narcotics and nerve-quelling tranquilizers. But not Thomas. Instead she rested on a gurney, alert and calm, taking deep breaths at her hypnotherapist's instruction. Thomas counted aloud, "One hundred, deep sleep; 99, deeper sleep; 98 ..."


"By the time I got to 95, the words and numbers had all gone," says Thomas. "It's quite peculiar. They all go."

Minutes later, thoroughly hypnotized, Thomas was rolled into the operating room. There she underwent a 30-min. procedure with no anesthetics and no discernible pain. Her hypnotherapist stayed by her side throughout, monitoring her trance state and refocusing her mind when it drifted.

Thomas' story is not as extraordinary as you might think. Since the early 1990s, thousands of patients have opted for hypnosis--either as a substitute for or (more typically) as a complement to anesthesia--in a wide variety of surgical procedures, from repairing hernias to removing tumors. At the University Hospital of Liége in Belgium, a team of doctors led by Dr. Marie-Elisabeth Faymonville has logged more than 5,100 surgeries by hypnosedation, a technique Faymonville developed that replaces general anesthesia with hypnosis, local anesthesia and a mild sedative. "Patients tell us that it is a very special experience," says Faymonville. "We now have people coming from all over the world."


Hypnosis was first used as a surgical anesthetic in India in 1845 but was quickly abandoned with the introduction of ether the following year. The practice languished for decades, becoming, at least in the public eye, little more than a parlor trick. In 1958 it was sanctioned by the American Medical Association for use in medicine and dentistry. Since then, doctors have hypnotized patients to help ease such ills as migraines, depression, anxiety and chronic cancer pain.

But it is in Europe that surgical applications of hypnosis have flourished. The new interest stems in part from studies showing that hypnosedated patients suffer fewer side effects than fully sedated ones do. According to Faymonville, hypnotized patients can get by on less than 1% of the standard medications required for general anesthesia, thus avoiding such aftereffects as nausea, fatigue, lack of coordination and cognitive impairment. In a 1999 study of thyroid patients, Faymonville found that the typical hypnosedated patient returned to work 15 days after surgery, compared with 28 days for a fully anesthetized patient.

Meanwhile, studies using advanced scanning technology have shed new light on how hypnosis works to block pain. In a report published two years ago in the journal Regional Anesthesia and Pain Medicine, Dr. Sebastian Schulz-Stübner of the University of Iowa reported using heat-producing thermodes to measure the pain thresholds of 12 healthy volunteers ("painful" stimuli earning a rating of 8 or higher on a 10-point scale). When the participants were hypnotized and re-exposed to the thermodes, all 12 reported feeling significantly reduced pain (with ratings of 3 or lower) or no pain at all.


The differences in the subjects' brain scans were equally striking. The typical pain signal follows a well-worn path from the brain stem through the midbrain and into the cortex, where conscious feelings of pain arise. In Schulz-Stübner's study, the hypnotized group showed subcortical brain activity similar to that of nonhypnotized volunteers, but the primary sensory cortex stayed quiet. The "ouch" message wasn't making it past the midbrain and into consciousness.

The new findings have fostered interest in the U.S., where doctors are using hypnosis for procedures in which sedation is inappropriate or for patients who are allergic to anesthetics. Dr. David Spiegel, associate chair of the department of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Stanford University, hypnotizes Parkinson's sufferers during the implantation of deep-brain electrodes--a process that requires tremulous patients to remain conscious and calm. He has also coaxed children into imagining that a balloon tied to their wrist will fly them to their favorite places, a hypnotic technique that has lessened anxiety in pediatric patients undergoing bladder catheterizations. In Iowa, Schulz-Stübner hypnotizes patients to reduce pain and anxiety while they receive presurgery nerve blocks, such as epidurals. He finds that the calming effects of hypnosis often last through the entire operation.

Yet even the most enthusiastic proponents of hypnosedation don't suggest that it replace anesthesia entirely. For one thing, not everybody can be hypnotized. Some 60% of patients are hypnotizable to some degree, Spiegel says; an additional 15%, highly so. The rest seem to be unresponsive. Moreover, many patients are fully sedated before surgery not because the surgeon requires it but because they choose to be. "People don't want to feel or hear anything. They want to be out," says Schulz-Stübner. "That's what you hear most of the time."


Medical Hypnosis is gaining credibility! In July, 2001, Scientific American stated, "Though often denigrated as fakery or wishful thinking, hypnosis has been shown to be a real phenomenon with a variety of therapeutic uses especially in controlling pain." The Wall Street Journal in the October 7th, 2003 issue stated, "Numerous scientifc studies have emerged in recent years showing that the hypnotized mind can exert a real and powerul effect on the body."



"I frequently refer patients to Hypnotherapists because I have seen it produce excellent results in many illnesses..." - Andrew Weil M.D. Clinical Professor of Medicine at the University of Arizona and Director of Integrative Medicine.


          "Change your mind,                      

             Change your life!"  

 

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