Reference published article
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/...
For those dealing with fibromyalgia, the never-ending pain and those awful sidekicks like anxiety, depression, and poor sleep can seriously mess with your quality of life. Meds help some, but for many, the pain just doesn't quit. This really highlights the urgent need for complementary therapies that actually work and have been thoroughly researched.
A recent study checked out how clinical hypnosis affects pain and related symptoms in people with fibromyalgia. This study was well-designed and involved 49 participants with moderate to severe fibromyalgia pain. The hypnosis group had eight weekly one-hour sessions focused on getting into a hypnotic trance and using suggestions for pain relief. The other group just had casual, unscripted conversations for the same amount of time. And get this, all participants kept taking their regular meds throughout the study.
The results were compelling. The hypnosis group had way less pain, not just right after the sessions but also three months later. This pain-relieving effect of hypnosis, when combined with medication, was way better than what the meds could do on their own.
But wait, there’s more! Hypnosis helped with a bunch of other stuff too. The hypnosis group showed major improvements in:
- The sensory and emotional sides of pain
- How unpleasant the pain felt
- Pain catastrophizing (aka negative thinking about pain)
- Anxiety and depression symptoms
- Sleep quality
- How much fibromyalgia was messing with their lives
- Overall quality of life
And the cool part? These improvements stuck around at the 3-month follow-up, and there were no bad side effects reported in the hypnosis group.
This study gives solid proof that clinical hypnosis is an effective and doable way to handle the many challenges of fibromyalgia. By showing significant and lasting improvements in pain, mental health, sleep, and quality of life, this research adds to the growing evidence that hypnosis can be a powerful tool for chronic pain conditions. For healthcare providers and people seeking additional therapies for fibromyalgia, these findings offer a hopeful and evidence-based option to think about.