HYPNOTHERAPY IN THE TREATMENT OF LEVATOR SYNDROME

Aim: is to evaluate hypnotherapy as a possible treatment for Levator syndrome (L S) Methods: In a controlled study 44 patients with levator syndrome were randomly allocated to treatment with either hypnotherapy or traditional therapy over 50 weeks, both groups were comparable in regard to, age, sex, duration of symptoms and pretreatment mean pain scores. Results: the overall results showed highly significant difference in mean pain scores between both groups in favour of hypnotherapy. We noticed that change in pain scores between both groups reached statistical significance by the end of the second week. Of the 15 patients in the hypnotherapy group who had lateral levator tenderness on clinical examination, 10 were totally free from tenderness by the end of treatment, 2 had their tenderness milder and 3 persisted to report the same degree of tenderness, of whom 2 were the same who did not improve at all on hypnotherapy. On the other hand none of the 13 patients with lateral levator tenderness in the traditional therapy group showed any change in the degree of their tenderness by the end of treatment. Conclusion: The results suggest that hypnotherapy seems to be highly effective in treatment of levator syndrome.