Hypnotic Thoughts.

What You Really Need to Know about Fibromyalgia

This article is the opinion of the author, and is in no way intended to be medical advice.  If you have questions about your health, you should consult your personal physician.

CNN.com recently ran an article on the ways that chronic pain puts additional stress and turmoil on relationships.  One couple interviewed for the piece had really struggled with their marriage after the wife was diagnosed with fibromyalgia.  Her husband had difficulty supporting her because he thought that the condition was not real and all in her head. 

People with fibromyalgia, like anyone with chronic pain, deserve support and empathy.  The pain is very real.  Here's what most folks won't tell you:  the pain is also, very likely, created by the mind.  Fibromyalgia is an idiopathic condition, which means it has no discernible cause.  At this point in time, there is no virus, pathogen, genetic mutation, or any other biological cause of this condition that has been identified.  Perhaps one day they will discover one, but my instinct tells me that they won't.  Why?  Because I believe fibromyalgia is a manifestation of the mind's power.

We keep learning how powerful the human mind is all the time.  I've had clients who have such severe anxiety that they break out in hives when that anxiety is activated.  Think about how powerful your mind must be to do this.  There are documented cases of people who have stage four cancer going into spontaneous remission.  Their doctors have no explanation of why.  There are cases and stories all over the world of people using the power of their mind to do amazing things, both good and bad, healthy and unhealthy. 

We have to re-evaluate what we really mean when we say something is "just in your head."  The mind's power to manifest chronic pain and other debilitating conditions should not be taken lightly or waved off.  When people have these conditions, they should not be labeled crazy or selfish.  Each of us deals with the circumstances of our lives differently, and illness is one of the common results of people's inability to cope in a healthy way. 

People who suffer from chronic pain are at a higher risk for developing depression.  People who suffer from both chronic pain and depression are more likely to be prescribed opiates, which can lead to addiction and other problems.  People who suffer from fibromyalgia are highly likely to also have chronic fatigue syndrome, temporomandibular joint disorder, irritable bowel syndrome, or migraine headaches.  These other disorders are also ones in which the mind plays an important role.

Here's the upside to having a condition generated by your own mind: since your mind created it, your mind can fix it!  By working to discover the subconscious drivers that make the pain fulfill a function, you can help your own subconscious discover a new and better way to fulfill that function.  If your mind is so powerful that it can generate real physical pain, just imagine what else it can do.

Hypnosis Can Help Mesothelioma Patients Manage Pain

It was nice to find this article at mesotheliomahelp.net letting people know that hypnosis is an option for pain management.  If you or someone you love is suffering from mesothelioma, ask your doctor about hypnosis as a pain management option. 

FDA says Arthritis Drugs Increase Kids' Cancer Risk

Tumor necrosis factor blockers work by neutralizing a protein that, when overproduced, causes inflammation and damage to bones, cartilage and other tissue. These drugs are prescribed to children with rheumatoid arthritis, inflammatory bowel disorder and Crohn's disease. On Tuesday federal regulators announced that using the drugs for more than two and a half years increases children's risk of cancer, particularly lymphoma.

As a result of this discovery, the FDA will require a stronger warning on the packaging of these drugs and will also require additional information to be provided with the guidelines that come with the drugs, but they will not stop them from being sold.  Each of the five major drugs is a multi-billion dollar seller.  The leading one sold 3.4 billion last year alone.

Inflammation of the bowels, Crohn's disease, and chronic pain can all be managed with hypnosis, and there is no risk of getting cancer from being hypnotized.  There are articles and abstracts in the National Institutes of Health database that show this.  There are certainly times when medication is appropriate and necessary, but why would anyone choose it when cancer is a risk while they have a safe, natural alternative to choose instead?

FDA Recommends Ban on Percocet, Vicodin

Two of the most popular painkillers in the world are Percocet and Vicodin.  The FDA recently recommended that both drugs be banned because of the damage they cause to the liver and for their potential for overdose.

Both drugs combine acetaminophen with a narcotic.  Acetaminophen is an ingredient in Tylenol and Excedrin, and is known to damage the liver in high doses.  The FDA panel also noted that patients who take Percocet and Vicodin over long periods of time have a tendency to increase the dosage in order to get the same pain relieving effect.

Dr. Lewis S. Nelson, a toxicologist from the New York University School of Medicine who served as the panel’s acting chairman, said experts had been warning of the dangers of combination painkillers like Percocet and Vicodin for years.

Hypnosis has been clinically proven to provide pain relief with none of the side effects or risks of these other drugs.  Whether a person suffers from chronic or acute pain, hypnosis can turn that pain off.  It's sad that so many people are risking the damage to their livers and the possibility of overdose when a completely safe alternative exists. 

If you suffer from pain and want to get relief without these risks, consider finding a Certified Hypnotist in your area and consulting with that person.  Always consult with your physician before making any changes in your health situation.

Study Suggest Swearing May Help Deal With Pain

Dr. Richard Stephens and his team at Keele University in the UK have published the results of a study that suggests that swearing actually lessens pain.  Stephens asked participants to submerge one hand in nearly freezing water for as long as they could while repeating a curse word. Later the participants submerged the same hand again, this time repeating a word they would use to describe a table. When people were cursing, they kept their hand in the water for 40 more seconds than they could otherwise.

While such a study may justify some of your past moments of bad language, I wouldn't use it as a license to crank up the cursing just yet.  Certainly there are better ways to deal with pain.  Try hypnosis!  It's a proven method for managing pain, and it won't get you nearly as many nasty looks.

The hypnotic power of acupuncture.

An interesting article by Time Magazine suggests that, for some people, fake acupuncture can work as well as real acupuncture.  When it comes to back pain, the power of suggestion can do amazing things.

Researchers at the Group Health Center for Health Studies found that doing "fake" acupuncture using toothpicks to poke people rather than actually inserting needles into them produced relief that was just as good as the traditional Chinese method of acupuncture.  You can read the Time article here.

I don't think the point of the article was to suggest that acupuncture isn't real or effective, but more to point out that when people are in pain they will take relief where ever they can get it.  Back pain seems to often be connected to stress and anxiety, so while it can be about physical injury and problems with the spine or muscles, there also seems to be a pretty serious connection to the state of mind the person is in.  If this is the case, then it would make sense that the "suggestion" of relief from a bogus method would work for some people, perhaps even just as well as it would for the real method, since many of the people may not be getting the pain from a real physical problem in the first place.

Don't underestimate the power of the mind...

Study shows hypnosis helps reduce inflammation, colitis.

A small study in Britain published in the American Journal of Gastroenterology suggests that hypnosis can help reduce inflammation in the colon and rectum.  Scientists have theorized that our nervous system stays connected to our digestive tract as we develop in the womb, and have coined the term "second brain" to refer to this connection.  There is, clearly, a connection between stress and digestive problems.  Hopefully this study will lead to larger studies that will gain greater confidence from the medical community when it comes to using hypnosis to improve people's health in the area of ulcers and colitis.

Tooth extraction using hypnosis for anesthesia.

WARNING:  The following video contains images of dental surgery that may be upsetting to some people.

Here's a video of a woman who gets two teeth extracted using only hypnosis for anesthesia.  Amazing!

Man gets hernia surgery using only hypnosis for anesthesia.

WARNING: This video does include some graphic images of a man undergoing abdominal surgery.

John Butler is a practicing hypnotist who uses his skills on himself when he needs surgery to repair a hernia.  This is a fantastic example of the power of the human mind, and of hypnosis' potential for each of us.

Who puts the "irritable" in Irritable Bowel Syndrome?

If you don't know anyone who suffers from IBS, it's either because nobody's told you, or because you're the one who suffers from it.  As many as one in five people have the condition.  A whole industry exists around aiding people with digestive problems, and those aids even go so far as prescription medications, but what if none of it is necessary?

A November 19 article from U.S. News & World Report suggests what hypnotists have known for ages.  "Mind-body techniques show real promise when it comes to easing the pain of some digestive disorders." Crohn's disease, ulcerative colitis, gastroesophageal reflux disease, and more digestive disorders don't always respond to medication, but studies are showing that hypnosis does produce relief for many people.

"If I had to take a guess, I'd say GI input [to the brain] is responsible for about 80 percent of our well-being," says Emeran Mayer, director of the Center for the Neurobiology of Stress at UCLA.  There's a certain level of inflammation that occurs in your gastrointestinal tract naturally as it tries to digest the food you eat.  Stress can greatly increase this inflammation.  So, while stress doesn't cause the earlier mentioned digestive problems, it can make them much, much worse.  Remember, now, that your subconscious mind could be processing stress that you're not even consciously aware of, stuff that you think you stopped thinking about a while ago.

So who's putting the "irritable" in IBS?  The boss, the kids, the traffic... heck it's always something!  This makes it all the more important that you learn how to better process and cope with your stress.  You may think you're doing just fine, but if you have one of these digestive problems there's a very good chance that it's connected to poor stress resolution on your part.  Time to take an inventory and re-assign some priorities.  Your health has to come first!

Change your energy, and let your body work more calmly and efficiently.  This starts with your mind not with a pill.  Learn self-hypnosis, meditate, or create a daily ritual that lets you de-stress and blow off steam in a healthy way.  There's always going to be stress in your life; that's beyond your control.  You can, however, control how you respond to those stress points.  That's your choice, and in that choice you have power.

Your next success is right around the corner.

*The opinions expressed in this weblog are those of Paul Ramsay, CH, and do not constitute advice.  Paul Ramsay is not a medical professional.  If you have a health issue, always consult with your physician before attempting any kind of treatment plan.