hypnotherapy

the national migraine centre are conducting a trial of hypnotherapy for migraine treatment.( along with other treatments) click on their face book page to keep up with the feed back.

has anyone here tried hypnotherapy??

Six or seven sessions, it did nothing for me.

Martin

It was suggested to me by a pain specialist, but for increasing my amount of REM sleep, not the pain. My sleep study showed I hardly get any REM, so no wonder I am exhausted all the time. They suggested a few different places and said they took insurance, but when I looked into it, none of them did, so I couldn't give it a try. If I tired every treatment out there I'm be broke, so unfortunately I mostly have to only try those than insurance covers. Sounds interesting, but I think you have to be the type of person that is more open to suggestion, otherwise it may either not work or may take a lot more effort.

I am seeing a therapist on the suggestion of my pain specialist and she has been trying different techniques on me to reduce the pain, such as guided imagery. I haven't responded to any of them. We've deduced its likely as I'm more scientific minded and not very open to suggestion. She thinks eventually we could make some progress, but actually wasn't really pushing me to keep at it. I haven't seen much of any impact from these sessions unfortunately.

My main goal was to reduce my generalized anxiety from the pain, but we haven't even figured out why I'm getting that. I'm always open to trying new things as long as I don't see that they could cause harm. I hope they continue to do research on subjects like this so they can be medically proven and therefore covered by insurance. Best wishes.

My experience as a therapist was that hypnotherapy was less successful for migraine, than for IBS for which it was probably the best thing out there...
Be interesting to see their results.

Pen

It is often claimed by hypnotherapists, who claim to be therapists,that they can cure almost any condition - physical as well as psychological - even IBS, or migraine.
Many of us have come across such people and their claims, but they've mostly proven to be quite false; just a way of making profit from other people's suffering.

When I was still young and naive enough to belive such claims, I've also tried it, but of course it did not work.
I would still like to hear from anyone on this site, who got any lasting benefits from hypnotherapy.

Maybe hypnotherapy is like many of the pills we take, it works for some people and not for others.

My brother-in-law stopped smoking after going to a therapist.

Martin

Hi Mini, Well I have had lasting effects from Hypnotherapy for IBS, but not migraine.
It has been tested, and is now available on the NHS for IBS, which is great because it can be quite expensive.

I also have a family member and a friend who had very good results.

But it is like everything else, you need a good therapist, not just one trying to make money out of our suffering.
But that is the same with all of the therapies.

That said, there is no panacea as the other post says, what suits one, doesnt suit another.
I guess we just have to find our own way and it can be tough.

Well maybe you are right, maybe not. Some relief from hypnotherapy might be due to the "palcebo effect" especially if you pay lot of money for it, but as I said above:
I would still like to hear from anyone, on this site, who got any lasting benefits from hypnotherapy...For any condition.

Yes, it is possible to get some decent, temporary relief, even from self-hypnotherapy - which is BTW not that difficult to learn since I have been able to do it after reading about it and practicing it just few times - but on the whole, it is just another form of the many available relaxation techniques, and not a valid long term treatment.
You can get similar results from other relaxation techniques.

Mini wrote:Well maybe you are right, maybe not. Some relief from hypnotherapy might be due to the "palcebo effect" especially if you pay lot of money for it, but as I said above:
I would still like to hear from anyone, on this site, who got any lasting benefits from hypnotherapy...For any condition.

Yes, it is possible to get some decent, temporary relief, even from self-hypnotherapy - which is BTW not that difficult to learn since I have been able to do it after reading about it and practicing it just few times - but on the whole, it is just another form of the many available relaxation techniques, and not a valid long term treatment.
You can get similar results from other relaxation techniques.

Even if some relief is down to the "placebo effect" it would still count as a benefit, surely

The question is, even with pills, do we ever get a long lasting effect? We have to keep taking them, side effects or not. That is if we find one that works on our illnesses.

I think hypnotherapy is part of the mind-body effect that we hear so much about. Too bad it did not work on me, either for the headache or for the insomnia.

Martin

Yes, I absolutely agree, any relief is good, even placebo.
But we know that placebo's effects is only assured, as long as you believe it.
If you don't, unlike medicnes a placebo has no effect whatsoever, otherwise we would all be on sugar pills, instead of using relable, tested medicines when we are in pain.

Martin, although no, you can't say that each dose of medicine lasts long term, if we find a medicine that suits us, it can be effective and it is possible to replicate it's positive effect over a long period of time. Sometimes even for decades (like triptans, for some of us) because it will work time after time, long term. This is what I meant about the lasting effect.
I wonder, if the same could be said about hypnotherapy, this is why I raised the question.

I tried hypnotherapy for about three months and it didn't really do anything for me. My insurance covered it as the therapist was also a licensed psychologist so it was billed that way. Maybe it also depends on who is the person doing the hypnotherapy, but I didn't see how it could work and I really tried to make it work. While she put me 'in a trance' I would momentarily forget the pain, but the trance only lasted for about 20 minutes and then it would end. She would record it sometimes, but I could only listen to it on my ipod for so many times a day.

I think if it was a placebo effect, I would have gotten better from all the medications I tried, which I truly believed would help, at least until they didn't.

By the time most of us get to alternate medicines, we are grasping at straws. So I think any benefits we get at that point are the least likely to be due to placebo, because we don't really have high hopes by that point.

I have not tried hypnotherapy myself. I'm not that easily suggestible.
But other things like accupuncture and vitamin supplements, both of which I really doubted,
did work. I'm pretty sure that's not placebo.

I suspect hypnotherapy would help for people who have a strong anxiety or stress component as a trigger. If your underlying triggers are something else, probably not so much.

I agree with much of what you said MG. Note, that I only refer to hyphotherapy in terms of a possible placebo effect in some cases, and that like you I believe that medicines either work or not, especially if taken on several occasions and we get the same result.
This is why I give an example of sumatriptan (in my case) becasue it works every time and I do not even have to think that it "must" work.

However, with hypnotherapy there is a very strong element of suggestion as well as the setting, which creates almost an obligation to belive in it, on the part of the client. Often hypnotherepists are strong, sometimes charismatic personalities which ooze confidence that they know what they are doing, and that this is going to work, so the conditions for a possible placebo effect are particulary strong.

Yes, after years of trying to get relief we are a pretty cynical lot, but the very fact that we go on trying, means that we have not lost all our hope. Many people are so desperate that they will go on trying even when they stopped belivening that anything will help. This is precisely how, in the end, I found a breakthrough in my M treatement.

I have tried hypnotherapy and gave it a chance of several sessions, but it did not work for my M.
I also think that it can have effect ion some conditions, just like you say. But I have not heard of anyone who was helped with M, repeatedly, so far.

It will be interesting to the the results of the trial at that clinic.

I suspect hypnotherapy would help for people who have a strong anxiety or stress component as a trigger. If your underlying triggers are something else, probably not so much.

Given the stress element in IBS MG, These are my thoughts too.

I gained control over IBS 20 years ago with hypnotherapy.
Ironically, I had to stop practicing due to migraine.

I have a lot of confidence in hypnotherapy. But it didnt help my migraines...

Its not suggestibility at all, it doesnt work that way, but its very dependent on patient and therapist relationship.

Interesting to see how this survey goes.