anyone ever try hypnosis for pain?

Since I am a severe dental phobic, many years ago, (when I was about 12 or so), my mother took me to a hypnotist to get rid of my dental phobia.

I don't remember the sessions at all.

What I do remember was when we got to the dentist, he was told to use some kind of trigger to put me under. I had to put my hands together and he was supposed to lightly take his fingers and brush my hands up and down. That was SUPPOSED to relax me and help me get through the whole thing.

I wound up jumping out of the chair and running down the block.

I guess the hypnotist didn't do enough huh???? lol

But I'd give it a shot. The mind is everything and if we can train our mind to release endorphins (like athletes do), hey, it's worth it.

I mean, I trained my mind not to eat after 7:30 p.m. I trained my mind not to crave potato chips or any carbs. So if the mind can do that, why not train it to obliterate the pain??

But it's expensive, that much I know. I read an article and I called a hynotherapy company a few years ago. They said they helped people with phobias, smoking, obesity, etc. It was thousands.

Too rich for me, unfortunately.

mel

by hypnosis. There are ways to dissociate pain. My physical therapist taught it.
I did not need it however, because I learned it years ago.

I use a form of auto-relaxation which I learned as a creativity tool when I was in art school. This has allowed me now in my later years, to put pain on the back burner.

However, severe pain...when you do it...the process can make you a bit stupid to your environment. Driving a car I found to be dangerous in that state.
But for falling and staying asleep (when my feet bother me the most) it is very helpful.

My god-father, a chiropractic surgeon, used to use self hypnosis when he wanted to continue to work with little sleep. He would go into a deep relaxed state for anywhere between 20 mins. to an hour, and take a 'power nap'. He'd wake refreshed and alert and ready to continue his work. This does not replace a full night's rest, tho.
It cannot be used too frequently to replace true sleep, but when he needed it, he'd use it.
I do a 'mantra' thing to relax me and see my 'inner mind' and use it to block pain, and also for deep relaxation when I cannot sleep due to pain or discomfort (also when I go to the docs office, to bring my blood pressure down, as I have 'white-coat' syndrome).
It also helps for me to use it, and take a short 'time out' from work when my pain is distracting enough to interfere with my daily activities.

Bob or Mrs D or both,
Would you mind explaining how you do it? Pain is becoming more of a problem for me and I'd sure like some ideas.

Billye

im not really sure what kind of hypnosis it is, i would imagine relaxation from what i read. Ill find out more on Monday. Because of my former profession, it actually wont cost me anything except travel money and time, 60 miles here can take many hours to travel. I dont have a mantra, maybe i should, im not sure how that works exactly. As many of us do in order to live i have to push the pain to the back burner in my mind as well as some disturbing memories and just keep on going anyway. Ive become pretty good at that so im hoping that this will further help.

Hypnosis can certainly be used for pain control. Here is a link to a study done at the University of Washington School of Medicine:

Hypnosis And Clinical Pain

A good resource book is "How to Hypnotize Yourself Out of Pain Now" by Bruce Eimer, PhD.

Please note that hypnosis for pain control should not be used without getting checked out by a medical doctor first. Pain, although sometimes unreliable, can be a symptom of more serious issues. You would not want to be hypnotizing yourself out of a headache if it were a symptom of a brain tumor, for example. Secondly, for most people, going into a hypnotic trance is a learned response that takes practice, so let yourself enjoy practicing going into a hypnotic trance.

Greg Turner, CCHt.
Certified Clinical Hypnotherapist
Pain Management & Accelerated Healing

Billye, people vary in the ability to be hypnotized.

Basically self hypnosis is a form of relaxation.
You can start by tensing and relaxing muscle groups...you can start with the little ones in the hands and face, and move down to the feet. Tensing and relaxing the thighs, buttocks and calves, is also good for your blood circulation.
This is a form of isometric exercise.

Then I start with making my mind go blank. If that is a tough day, and there are disturbing feelings still swirling around, I do visualization exercises of places that calm me. Typically scenes of our summer home/lake. But you can do sky, mountains you have seen, birdsong, etc. Some people need music or relaxing sounds to learn this technique. You can then generate it yourself. I find "talking" to myself to be very distracting. So I turn off my voice in my head. After practice you can enter this state quickly most of the time.
When you get very relaxed, you can sometimes "see" images on the back of your eyelids...these can change from day to day.

Sometimes they are "not nice" and when that happens it reveals to you your unconscious frustrations. I used this state for my art. It was also on Oprah once, where she discussed what some people call this: the psychomantium. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychomantium
You can do this behind your eyes, without any props. I consider it just messages from the right brain/ unconscious. If you try to focus on the images, they go away. So you learn to keep them there, and I think this is a form of biofeedback. Eventually you fall asleep. I always do. Our right brain does not have language and communicates with images. Many people become afraid of this, but it is really not something horrible. It just is. Coming to terms with these feelings and images, releases much negative energy that goes to your body instead. I don't always see images...I typically do when I am blocking myself, or pushing myself (like in my job). Lately since I have not been working I am not seeing much.

It takes some practice. But once you learn the ropes, it comes easily and quickly. I find I can dissociate cold pretty well. I learned to do that on vacation because some nights get very cold. But heat, I have more trouble with. The seminar I went to last week, part of it was about sleep. And the lecturer who was just great..imparted many general things about sleep, aging, nutrition and Alzheimer's prevention. One of the most critical things was---
sleep cool. Do not exercise past 4pm, do not go to bed with a full stomach which heats you up, do not take hot baths before bedtime. The body needs to cool down. You can take a warm bath, and cool down well enough however. It is the cooling down which stimulates sleep.

And I think this is important for pain control. If you are hot and bothered, pain will be worse. For example, I can't stand to have my feet tucked in, and I can't stand socks anymore. So to keep me from becoming an ice cube, I use leg warmers instead. These don't constrict my feet, and they keep the blood warm enough to keep my feet alive at least.
In about a week or so here, I will be starting to use them. So I can still stick my feet out of the covers!

It takes some practice, and it requires "letting go". People who have control issues, are harder to train.

I'll try to remember this thread when I get into bed tonight. Right now, I'm going to go outside and get a visual of our woods that I can carry in my head when I go to bed. This is fascinating and hopefully I'll be able to do this. I have trouble turning my head off at night. I'm finding that anxiety is a big issue because I'm still waiting on the results of a lot of tests from the last hospitalization. But maybe if I can look at something familiar in my memory it will help. Thanks for your effort in doing this post.

Billye

is really a form of hypmotizing ones self too - i know i've talked about this before - consicoulsy relaxing is great and i'm trying to learn it more and more - but music will also take you to a place where you tend to forget pain.. (there was even special this AM about health on CBS - and how beneficial music is for health, etc.)..

Melody - when you go to the dentist - take your MP3 player and just ignore the dentist - it works great!

Have a good day all