An anesthesiologist at the University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics is taking a somewhat unusual approach to help his patients who struggle to find relief from their chronic pain. He uses hypnosis.
Dr. Sebastian Schulz-Stubner said the treatment is not often used by medical doctors because few formal studies have been done on its benefits and therefore few physicians are trained in using it for pain relief.
While no one knows for sure how hypnosis helps with pain relief, "We know that hypnosis shifts attention and the way certain impulses are perceived by the brain," he said.
Imaging technology has given doctors a better idea of what is happening.
He said when a pain stimulus is applied, "you would expect an activation in the so-called pain network and if you would do an MRI under hypnosis you do not see that activation in those areas and you see other areas lighting up."
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Hypnosis for pain
Doctors are studying hypnosis as a way for patients to deal with pain.
 
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While they do not know what cells or neurotransmitters are involved, it is clear that something is happening in the brain, he said.
In some European countries hypnosis is a well-accepted mass of evidence of psychotherapy and psychiatry and many more physicians are trained in it, he said.
The biggest misconception and cause of uneasiness of hypnosis is that people think the hypnotist is doing something to them, he said.
It is just the opposite.
"The hypnotist is only helping them with the suggestions, giving them a type of cooking recipe, how to achieve that state, but it is not really him doing it," he said.
"Studies done comparing people with hypnosis versus people without hypnosis showed that hypnosis is effective probably in the range of 65 percent to 70 percent," he said.
This is something you would see with many different treatment options for pain, so it gives patients who cannot find relief with other treatments or who want a more natural approach another option to choose from, he said.
While Dr. Schulz-Stubner is not implying hypnosis is a cure for chronic pain, he said it does give patients control over their pain.
One patient who suffers from chronic headaches said hypnosis allows her to control when the pain is more likely to strike so that she experiences it at a time when she can deal with it rather than at work or while she is out of the house.
Dr. Schulz-Stubner took this approach into the operating room as an alternative to drug-induced sedation in patients who require regional anesthesia to numb one part of the body while the patient remains awake.
In a study while at the Aachen University in Germany, Dr. Schulz-Stubner treated 48 patients this way. He reported the technique was effective when used in the right setting where, prior to surgery, the patients met with an anesthesiologist who explained the procedure. On the other hand, when used in emergency cases, only two of 12 patients were successfully hypnotized.
