Adjunctive non-pharmacological analgesic for invasive procedures

When 241 patients were undergoing percutaneous vascular and renal procedures (translation: either invasive balloon angioplasties, or going after blood clots in the leg, or draining urine from an obstructed kidney -- i.e., your basic, roto-rooter, clear-the-pipes, surgical procedure), they were randomly assigned to receive either standard care, or "structured attention" (meaning they had their own health care person at their side, offering reassurance, answering questions, and proffering solicitous support); or the structured attention along with relaxation, self-hypnosis and imagery guidance of the David Spiegel variety (roll your eyes up and close the lids, breathe deeply, concentrate on the sensation of floating, and remember a safe and pleasant experience.).

All had access to intravenous pain medication, and all rated their pain & anxiety on a 0-10 scale every 15 minutes during and after their procedures. The findings were impressive:

Pain increased steadily as the procedure went on for both the standard group and the attention group, but stayed flat with the hypnosis/imagery group.

Anxiety decreased over time in all 3 groups, but most dramatically and significantly in the hypnosis/imagery group.

Drug use was significantly higher in the standard group as compared with the attention and imagery/hypnosis groups.

Only one hypnosis/imagery patient became hemodynamically unstable (that's blood pressure trouble), as opposed to 10 attention patients and 12 standard patients (whoa!).

And finally procedure times were significantly shorter in the hypnosis/imagery group (61 minutes) as compared to the attention group (67 minutes) and the standard group (78 minutes).