Having been on serious prescription-level painkillers for years, and still being in pain which spiked at 9.8 on the usual 0-10 scale, I have been fairly desperate for some pain control which actually works. I joined a chronic pain mailing list to get some ideas about what alternative methods people were using to control pain and one that jumped out at me was self-hypnosis. It seemed, from what I could read on the web about it, to be a little similar to the EMDR which very successfully cured my emetophobia several years ago.
And I already know that I'm a highly hypnotisable person, from past events.
Another huge advantage was that I could learn it myself, at home, by buying a pre-made self-hypnosis-for-pain recording and using that every day and I would "automatically" learn as I had more practice at it. Being both broke and bedridden, there is no way I could attend a psychologist's office each week for several months, like a method such as CBT would require.
So, all in all, it seemed like a good thing to try.
Thus began my self-hypnosis quest. The first thing I needed was a recording, and since the Internet was the best resource I had easily available I first did a bunch of web searches for terms like "pain control by self hypnosis" and similar, refining the searches. It took a lot of searching but in the end I found a site that had a recording for pain control available for download. The site (one by somebody called Kenneth Grossman, in case others want to look) was fairly tacky looking but I really wanted to start with something and at least it wasn't as expensive as most of the others (the recording I purchased cost about US$40, at the time).
That night, about the time I usually started - and failed - to go to sleep, I put on the self-hypnosis recording. At first it took a lot of wriggling around before I was as comfortable as I could be and I ended up stopping the recording and starting it again before I could settle down. Later I set the computer up so a slow and calm song which I liked plays immediately before the recording, leading into it. This gives me time for wriggling around and getting comfy before the self-hypnosis recording commencess.
That first night, after having spent up to 12 hours getting to sleep for the last several months, the recording magically sent me right to sleep before it had even ended! The second day I was still awake when the recording ended, but was asleep 5 minutes later! When I analized how I felt after the recording, it wasn't exactly that the pain itself was less, it was that somehow it wasn't being labeled "important" by my brain and was easy to ignore.
After a lot of experimenting with these tapes and recording the results along with my pain level (on a scale of 0 = no pain, to 10 = worst pain imaginable) before and after the recording, I have found interesting things I've never known before. These are the things I've found:
When my pain is at or less than around 4-5 when I start, then the recordings do indeed help with the pain, and help to relax me a lot as well. When the pain is at this level, I find it very easy to go to sleep during or soon after the recording.
However, if the pain is above around 5, then the pain is so strong that it seems to prevent my from concentrating on the recording properly. If I try to relax physically when the tape says to, then the pain appears to increase even more and I can't stand it. When the pain is above 5 the recordings don't relax me emotionally or physically, and the recording doesn't help to reduce the level of the pain either.
So if the pain is really out of control then the self-hypnosis is utterly useless!
The claims of the recording - that they will permanantly lower or even eliminate the pain - have from my experience got nothing to do with reality, but that's not so surprising when we are talking about advertising! Even when the pain level is low to begin with and the recording helps me, the help is only temporary.
I have found the best way for me to use the self-hypnosis recordings is to play them soon after I take my pain medications have been taken and right before bed. Then - instead of my usual several hours of pain-caused insomnia - I am able drop right off to sleep quite easily during or very soon after the recording plays.
In conclusion: Well worth the price because of the effect on my insomnia, but the recordings don't come even close to living up to their claims of "permanantly lowered pain".
