It wasn’t that long ago that a diagnosis of HIV amounted to a death sentence. In the 1980s, when the virus first came to widespread public attention, there was no treatment and certainly no cure. Even as late as the 1990s, an HIV diagnosis meant sickness and the eventual process of the virus to turn into the dreaded AIDS, a condition which renders the body’s immune system unfit to ward off infections that were all around. AIDS sufferers died of opportunistic diseases because their bodies could no longer fight the germs of everyday living. Researchers worked towards a HIV cure, but had little hope of finding one.

Recently, though, treatments have become so sophisticated that some people say an HIV diagnosis is better than a diagnosis of cancer. This is because the new treatments are highly active and do an excellent job of suppressing HIV. HIV treatments can now stop the progression of the virus into full-blown AIDS. This means far fewer AIDS patients and far fewer HIV related deaths. But still, though hope was there towards a HIV cure, it was far off.

Now, however, some radical treatments have shown that there is hope for a cure, and that it might be closer than we would have thought. One American man was working in Berlin when he was tested for HIV and found he was infected. Years into getting treatment, he also developed leukemia. A brilliant doctor was working on his cancer treatment and remembered that there are some genes that confer cell resistance to HIV. He decided to try to look for a bone marrow donor with these genes to see if there could be crossover. More than four years later, the patient is said to have no more cancer or HIV in his body. He is completely well and people are wondering if they are closer than ever towards a HIV cure. » Read more: Towards An HIV Cure – Working To Have Hope

Working in the medical world, I get to see many situations where simple, easy, hypnosis could be used. There are everyday medical procedures that frighten many patients. Such as getting your blood taken or even getting a shot. Some patients get so frightened that they actually can faint. Sometimes people actually get so frightened that their veins constrict and get smaller, therefore, making it even more difficult to start an I.V. line. Some people will never go to a doctor because of this fear. Hypnosis affords a simple perfect solution to this problem that you can carry with you anywhere.

I.V. ‘s are a way to administer fluids and/or medications directly into the circulatory system. Hypnosis can help to alleviate or take away the discomfort and the fear. Injections are simply a way to get your body to slowly absorb various medications. Here are some simple hypnotic techniques that anyone can learn.

Simple dissociation technique works well in these situations. Just imagine being in a safe place real or imagined. Make it as real as possible. See what you would see, hear what you would hear, taste what you would taste. The idea is to make it as real as possible.

Some other visualizations that work can be that the patient can “picture and imagine” a thick gel pad covering the arm. It becomes thicker and thicker. So thick, that nothing can be felt underneath the pad.

Another visualization to use is simply going into self-hypnosis and imagine having the arm get numb. You will be able to feel them working, maybe a little discomfort but nothing will bother you. Some people respond well to the idea of having an “empty sleeve” so that they do not even know there is an arm there.

For blood draws, one may want to add the visualization of the veins dilating filling up with blood pumping to the surface. Or imagine floating in a warm bathtub and you veins just feeling the heat of the warm water. What you may find that will happen is that the veins will dilate just by the pure visualization of the warm water.

For needles, practice getting so relaxed that your arm feels as if it is not a part of your body. Because of your powerful mind, you have the ability to turn off the sensation in an arm, a leg, anywhere on your body. Just like a switching station, you can shut off the feeling of the hand or the arm or whatever part you want. » Read more: Hypnosis for Medical IV’s and Needles and Blood Draws