A Good Mix: Local Anesthesia and Hypnosis

Scientists have recently discovered that it is possible to use local anesthesia in combination with hypnosis, so as to speed up patients' recovery following certain types of surgery. This connection has never been proven before.

The research, conducted in Europe, shows that the benefits the joint approach supply are more important than those provided by any of the two, individually. Using LA in combination with hypnosis led to overall earlier hospital discharged, reduced drug usage, and improved healing rates.

The team behind the new work even suggests that using this method leads to a reduced incidence of cancers reoccurring, and also to a lower risk of developing metastases. The latter are instances in which tumors cells spread throughout the body, spreading the cancer all over the place.

Metastases are generally fatal, and so oncologists are working hard towards ensuring that their patients do not relapse in their condition,. A good way of doing this is to perform certain surgeries while the people being operated on are under hypnosis, and only locally anesthesized.

The new research was carried out by Dr. Fabienne Roelants and Dr. Christine Watremez, who are oth professors at the Cliniques Universitaires St. Luc, UCL Department of Anesthesiology, in Brussels.

During the experiments, the team looked at how the joint approach benefited patients who had to undergo a few types of breast cancer surgery, or thyroidectomy. The latter is an operation in which all of the thyroid galnd is removed from the body.

“In all of these procedures local anesthesia is feasible but not, on its own, sufficient to ensure patient comfort,” Roelants says. During the first experiments, 18 out of a group of 78 women underwent hypnosis for breast cancer surgery, whereas the others were put under general anesthetic.

Hospitalization times were proven to be a lot shorter for those who had the alternative surgeries, as were the rates at which these patients consumed opioid drugs against the pain. The most common painkiller for such surgeries is morphine, which is addictive.

“In addition to reducing drug use and hospital stay time, being able to avoid general anesthesia in breast cancer surgery is important because we know that local anesthesia can block the body’s stress response to surgery and could therefore reduce the possible spread of metastases,” Roelants says.

“Together with other anesthesiologists at the hospital, we are specialized in hypnosis,” Watremez adds, quoted by PsychCentral.

“Although there are special precautions to be taken – for example, only the hypnotherapist should talk to the patient during the procedure and should avoid negatives, which unconsciousness cannot handle, and the surgeon needs to be gentle, avoid any tugging in his movements, and be able to remain cool in all circumstances – it is a straightforward procedure and appreciated by the patients,” he concludes.