According to new studies recently reported on at conference in Europe by two Belgian anesthesiologists, Fabienne Roelants, MD, and Christine Watremez, MD, the combination of hypnosis and local anesthesia can aid in healing and reduce the amount of drugs used, as well as recuperation time in the hospital, in both breast and thyroid surgeries. The doctors reported their experience using a combination of medical hypnosis and local anesthesia in certain breast surgeries and video-assisted surgeries to remove the thyroid gland.
Some key highlights:
- The hypnosis was induced in the operating room, and was induced with a respected physician-developed hypnotic technique involving eye fixation and progressive muscle relaxation that is known as the Erickson approach.
- The surgeon administered local anesthesia, and in the other groups, general anesthesia.
- The physicians found that use of drugs and pain medications was lower, and length of hospital stay shorter, in the group who had the hypnosis/local anesthesia versus the group who had general anesthesia.
- The hypnosis patients had less nausea
- Generally, patient satisfaction scores were higher in the group who received hypnosis
In an interview with Medscape News, Dr. Roelants and Dr. Watremez said: "This is not the first study using hypnosis in thyroidectomy patients, but it is the first study using hypnosis for video-assisted thyroidectomy. It takes special training in hypnotic techniques, especially the techniques that reduce anxiety and pain. In our hospital, almost half of our staff will be trained in hypnosis at the end of this year." Their breast surgery research also found lowered levels of drugs needed during and after surgery, reduced time in the recovery room, reduced time in the hospital, and less wound drainage in the group receiving hypnosis and local anesthesia.
More Information on Thyroid Surgery
- Thyroid Surgery / Thyroidectomy Comprehensive Resources
- Thyroid Surgery and Thyroidectomy: An In-Depth Look
- Finding a Top Thyroid Surgeon
- Outpatient Thyroid Surgery
- Complications After Thyroid Surgery
- Recuperating After Thyroid Surgery: What to Expect
- Thyroid Surgery Without a Neck Scar: Exploring Scarless Transaxillary Robotic Thyroid Surgery with Dr. Emad Kandil
Photo: clipart.com
Be very careful with this, as not everybody responds to hypnosis, and those that do, do so to differing degrees. It is not “one size fits all”.
A number of years ago I was researching medical hypnosis for an article I was writing, and saw some amazing results, starting with mild pain relief to full operations done with only hypnosis as the anasthetic.
Just for fun, I wanted to try (I’d never been hypnotised before) and the medical hypnotist very obligingly agreed. But I found to my great annoyance that I was one of the around 10 per cent of people on whom hypnosis has no effect. That’s something you wouldn’t want to find out when you were actually on the operating table!
Alison
As a hypnotherapist I am particulalry interested in the fact that the “lowered levels of drugs needed during and after surgery, reduced time in the recovery room, reduced time in the hospital, and less wound drainage in the group receiving hypnosis and local anesthesia”.
This shows that the effect of the hypnotherapy was much wider than just the aneasthesia.
So, even if you still use traditional aeasthesia but prepare yourself for an operation with the help of a hypnotherpist you will be better prepared, will need less drugs and will heal more quickly post op. That’s because with the help of the therapist, the patient would have programmed their mind to expectation of wellness and positive outcomes and therefore to an ultimate healing functionality by placing ‘healing’ as a top priority in the mind.
General anesthesia uses fluorinated drugs that depress immune system and are neurotoxic as well as thyroid-suppressing. Any effective method that avoids the use of general anesthesia or allows the use of the shorter acting non-fluorinated drugs that cause only transient amnesia, or best of all just regional freezing, rather than weeks of brain fog and depression with increased risk of metastasis if the surgery was for a malignant tumor, is a VERY GOOD thing. So we can expect this study to be ignored in favor of status quo given the way thyroid patients are already being mistreated.