Impact of Hypnosis on the Management of Chronic and Breakthrough Pain of Chronic Dialysis Patients Suffering From Arterial Disease

A chronic renal disease can results in the development of cardiovascular complications, including chronic arterial disease ; but a cardiovascular disease may be from a kidney malfunction that will end in end stage renal disease (ESRD). Two thirds of the chronic hemodialysis patients taken in charge in Grenoble in the last years suffered from an arterial disease at a symptomatic stage. Breakthrough pain can appear during the hemodialysis sessions. These sessions induce sudden hemodynamic changes and a peripheral vasoconstriction reaction that increases in particular all pain phenomena related to chronic low limbs ischemia. Therefore, patients have to face pain, sometimes chronic but also breakthrough pain, during the dialysis sessions, in all its dimensions.

The analgesic balance through the classical drug treatment is extremely complex, as they are both at risk of overdose and of partial effectiveness. Strict medical treatment remains unsatisfactory, as it takes into account only the expressions of symptoms during dialysis sessions, when most of the time pain is already installed and analgesic treatment is not completely effective.

The combination of classic pharmacological treatment with hypnosis, already used in other indications (chronic pain, analgesia, depression and anxiety), may mitigate the painful feeling on patients suffering from arterial disease during the dialysis sessions, with a beneficial impact on their overall quality of life. There is also evidence to suggest that hypnosis may be more effective treating neuropathic or vascular pain, those experienced by our patients, than musculoskeletal pain, like back pain.

Hypnosis is a mind-body approach focused on the subject, and not on the disease or the act of dialysis. It can be described at the same time as a modified state of consciousness and a particular intersubjective relation between a practitioner and his patient. The practice of this kind of hypnoanalgesia by the nurses is particularly relevant in hemodialysis, as the trust developed during regular chronic treatment can become an asset to shorten the induction phase and help to install this intersubjective relation.

The high incidence of this complication, the difficulties of current pain management and the impact on everyday life for the patients, justify the choice of this approach, where more further research is needed.