Hernia symptoms are terrible. Reducing hernia pain is what you want most when all you can do all day is lie down with a pillow under your back or legs. You can't work, you can't enjoy a nice television show and even that book is annoying because you can't read for hours in the same position. The painkillers don't work or hardly work and a feeling of helplessness overwhelms you and you have to live with the pain in your leg or back for weeks to come because that's what the doctor said before anything can be done about it. To reduce the pain, in this article I will discuss what a hernia is and how you can deal with it through (self) hypnosis.
What is a herniated disc?
With a herniated disc, nerves are trapped in the vertebrae of the spine. This is because an intervertebral disc has started to bulge and this can press on the nerves. This then causes pain. A herniated disc often occurs in the neck and lower back.
There are also other herniated discs, such as a stomach hernia, but in this article I will specifically discuss the herniated disc in the back or neck.
Hernia symptoms
Obvious hernia symptoms include pain or just numbness. The pain caused by a herniated disc in the lower back is a sharp stabbing pain on a leg or buttock. Sometimes that pain can be felt all the way down to your foot. Sometimes, on the contrary, it is as if your leg is asleep all the time. That can drive you absolutely crazy.
Some postures or movements can cause more pain. Unfortunately, coughing, coughing and sneezing sometimes have the same effect.
If you have a herniated disc in the neck, the pain can actually radiate to the arms and shoulders. A neck hernia should be treated immediately by a doctor.
Hernia prevention
There are a number of causes of hernia, some you can do something about and some you can't. For example, taller people are more likely to get a hernia. But then again, what do you do? Getting smaller is a little tricky.
Fortunately, there are causes you can address, namely:
Stress causes all kinds of tension in the body, which can lead you to adopt unnatural postures that, over time, may result in a herniated disc. There are several hypnosis techniques for reducing stress.
Often, it’s your beliefs that cause stress, and with hypnosis, you can quickly reframe certain beliefs. That’s a really cool and effective way to tackle stress.
Quitting smoking is also a way to reduce the risk of a hernia. This can be very difficult, but hypnosis is a good way to quit smoking if you’re unable to do so on your own.
If you hobbyistically drive often, it is wise to do so less often or for a long time.
You often can't do much about heavy physical work, but strength training can also give you a herniated disc. Therefore, always get advice from a personal trainer or fitness instructor if you are going to train with heavy weights. Even regular sit-ups can cause a hernia! So vary the exercises as well.
Hernia treatment
With a neck hernia, surgery is always performed to restore space to the nerves. This is to prevent paralysis.
On the contrary, if you have a herniated disc in the back, it goes away on its own within 12 weeks in 3 out of 4 people, but you will still have 6 to 8 weeks of pain before the symptoms lessen. If the symptoms still do not subside, you should consult your doctor again to decide whether to wait or go under the knife after 3 months.
Treating hernia pain with hypnosis
Of course, you’d prefer for the hernia to simply go away, but since that can take a few weeks, it’s helpful to have the tools to manage the pain and support your body in reducing the hernia.
If you have a severe hernia, painkillers don't help the pain. In fact, chances are you will experience the pain worse than it is because you no longer have control over it. Research shows that if you can stop the pain, the pain is less severe than if you don't feel you can stop the pain.
Hypnosis can help you cope better with pain, making it less intense and more bearable in many cases. You may still feel pain, but thanks to hypnosis techniques, it no longer completely disrupts your life. It promotes relaxation, which shifts your focus away from the pain and toward something more enjoyable.
Initially, you can shift your focus to your breathing. Pain can cause your breathing to be short and jerky. This can also create extra tension in your body, making the pain worse.
By getting your breathing back deep, through your belly and flowing, you also relax physically. For example, you lie down and put your hands on your belly. Then you breathe in for three seconds or long counts, your goal being that by breathing in, your hands go up. Then you breathe out through your mouth. You repeat this to make your body relax.
A hypnotherapist can then direct your thoughts to something other than pain. Because each person likes something different, the therapist may first ask you questions about it, but usually it is something along the lines of being in a beautiful place, like the beach, with the feeling of the warm sun on your body. Evoking sensations other than pain can distract from the actual pain.
Then you can also repeat these exercises at home with self-hypnosis until the hernia repairs itself.
Hypnosis for surgery
If you have to undergo surgery for a neck hernia or, eventually, a back hernia, it’s incredibly nerve-wracking. Even though these surgeries are performed every day, this time it’s your turn. Surgeries usually go well, but what if you happen to be the one patient where the surgeon makes a mistake? You often hear these kinds of fears from herniated disc patients. Surgery on the neck is particularly nerve-wracking because that area contains all sorts of vital organs, such as arteries and nerves. The fear that the surgery itself could leave you paralyzed is therefore a common concern among patients.
To help you relax so you can sleep well the night before, it’s a good idea to see a hypnotherapist. They can help you overcome your fear of the surgery. You’ll also receive self-hypnosis tips that you can use right up until you receive the anesthesia, helping you stay calm.
This also makes surgery not a super big scary thing right away, but something you can deal with. In a moment of fear, you can use hypnosis techniques to calm down again, and often the fear is no longer present at all after a few hypnosis sessions.
Hypnotherapy then includes relaxation exercises, ego-strengthening suggestions and visualizations that reduce fear of surgery.
A meta-research, which is a type of study that revisits all the studies and then comes up with a kind of overall conclusion, shows that hypnosis before surgery helps with anxiety and pain. In doing so, it also helps the procedure go faster and you need less medication beforehand if you use hypnosis therapy.
Supporting hernia recovery with hypnosis
Recovery from a hernia can be supported with hypnosis even if no surgery is required. In fact, research shows that hypnosis causes a wound caused by surgery to recover significantly faster than in patients who do not receive hypnosis therapy after surgery. This was significantly better in both the first and seventh weeks after surgery than in people who did not receive hypnosis. The values are really significant for people with knowledge of this; the P value was less than 0.001. So there is a strong possibility that hypnosis can be blamed for the faster healing of the surgical wound than anything else.
In short
A herniated disc is annoying because you have to live in pain for weeks before it hopefully goes away on its own. Hypnotherapy gives you tools to shift your focus from the pain to something else. This gives you control over the pain which can also reduce your pain experience and reduce or even eliminate the need for painkillers.
Hypnotherapy can also help you before, during and after surgery to remove hernia. Through (self) hypnosis you will have less fear of the procedure which will also make it go faster, and through (self) hypnosis you will recover from the surgery faster.
Would you like to learn more about how you can help yourself and others with hypnosis? Then check out all the courses and events offered by the Hypnosis Institute of the Netherlands.
Pin this handy infographic as a reminder:
Sources:
www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00029157.2003.10403546
www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0272735813000457
This article describes practical experiences and insights and is not medical advice. Hypnosis is not a substitute for medical or psychological treatment: if you have symptoms, always consult your primary care physician or healthcare provider first.
