Hypnosis for Pain Management

Hi everyone! I do not subscribe just to one particular method to deal with all clients. And that is why each year, I find myself attending workshops, seminars and reading innovative books. Not only do I find that my skills and expertise increase as each year passes and that I am able to utilise the best possible options for my clients, I also find that I am able to inspire my hypnosis students to do the same and not to stagnate after having learnt a particular skill or techniques. In fact, we do have regular sharing sessions during which we come together to share ideas gleaned from workshops or seminars that each one of us has attended.

I would like now to highlight how hypnosis can be used to manage pain. I am going to do this by giving you an example of how I used hypnosis to help someone close to me. Ofcourse I have also used it on paying clients but for the moment, I shall leave them out of this and allow me to share
how I used hypnosis on my mum to first calm her just before she was wheeled into the operating theatre for her knee surgery and then to relieve her of her severe knee pain after the surgery was done.

A little bit of background information may come in useful. First, my mum has had knee problems ever since she was in her thirties. It just got worse with each passing year. Out of desperation and inability to tolerate the pain, my mum agreed to have a knee replacement done on one of her knees. This was about eleven years ago when my mum was in her fifties. That time I was not yet a hypnotherapist and also I was just setting up my new business and I was busy. I had been with her the night before the operation when my mum overheard that the doctor had to attend a court case and she immediately started doubting the doctor. I was not able to allay her fears. The next day I was with her when she was wheeled into the operating theatre; none of my siblings were there; all had to go to work. This added to her mental and emotional unease.

What we didn't expect was that complications would arise mainly due to my mum's uneasy state of mind despite the fact that she was under general anaesthesia. The doctor had actually made an incision but he was not able to continue with the knee replacement surgery because in his words, 'they had to stop to save her life'. Whatever it was, my mum still had to recover from the wound caused by the incision and she suffered a great deal of emotional trauma. And despite her condition getting worse and despite the excruciating pain, my mum refused to have another operation. It was only in 2005 when she was in her sixties that she finally relented and agreed to have the knee replacement done. This time, we did not take any chances and we discussed her earlier experience with the doctor who also took a number of precautions. I also used hypnotic language to ease her worries and to give her the moral and emotional support that she needed.

And I did a pre-operative hypnosis session with her to calm her nerves and to make her feel safe and secure. Also this time all my siblings were also there to give her the moral support. Thankfully all went well and my mum's operation was a success. However, by the time my mum was wheeled out of the operation theatre, the anaesthesia had worn off and she was in great agony. The doctor had prescribed morphine for her but due to some reason, the nurses in her ward were too busy and they were delayed. With my mum's permission, I hypnotised her and put her into a deep sleep; she slept for hours without feeling the pain. When the nurse came, I instructed them to give her the pain killer only after she wakes up. I then left my mum in the care of the hospital staff as I had to go back to my office. My mum's orthopaedic surgeon was also impressed when he heard about how hypnosis helped my mum to 'forget' her pain and fall asleep.

This experience made my mum very brave and in 2006, she had a second knee replacement done, also successful. Now my mum is able to walk without having to stop and scream in pain at every step. All paises to God for making this possible! You may be wondering why I attribute this to God. Well from my experience I have learnt that prayers work! In fact during the months leading up to her first operation, I had been praying fervently for a cure for my mum, and it came in the form of my mum agreeing to be operated upon and in all other factors just falling into place to enable it to happen successfully.