Patient was instructed upon practicing mental anesthesia and analgesia technique for pain management as follows:
- Select a comfortable place, as you need some isolation, to practice the technique of mental anesthesia and analgesia.
- Make yourself comfortable by either sitting down or lying flat.
- Start doing slow and deep breathing and focus on the rise of chest and abdomen during the inspiratory phase of the breathing.
- Hold the breath for 3 seconds at the end of inspiration.
- Perform slow and prolonged expiration and focus on the fall of chest and abdomen during the expiratory phase of the breathing.
- Continue to practice slow and deep breathing, while practicing this technique.
- Mentally, imagine either infusion or natural production of pain relieving chemicals into the pain site, which helps with better pain control.
- You can train the mind to imagine infusion of a strong anesthetic, such as, Bupivacaine or a strong narcotic, such as, Morphine, into the pain site, to help imagine a state of numbing of pain for better pain control.
- Using this technique, you can also train the mind, to imagine placing a cold patch on an inflamed joint with swelling. Also, you can train the mind using this technique, to imagine placing a heat patch on a stiff joint, to help warm up the joint and relieve muscle spasms around the joint, and to promote range of motion in the joints.
- Increased flow of endorphins, which are natural opioid pain relievers normally produced by the brain for pain relief, could also be imagined mentally, to help better pain control.
- Since mindful imagination of infusion of pain relieving chemicals with consequent pain relief could be difficult when the pain level is high, start practicing the technique of mental anesthesia and analgesia when the pain level is manageable and gradually move on to practicing it with high pain levels, as you gain more control on practicing the technique.
