NO Anesthesia During Ankle Surgery—and It’s OK?

The surgeon was half-way through a two hour ankle replacement procedure when the patient suddenly asked, “How’s it going?” Later the patient commented on the noise made by the saw as it was cutting through his bone. What was going on?

What was going on was hypnosis. The patient, 66-year-old Alex Lenkei, of Worthig, West Sussex, Ireland, chose to forgo traditional anesthetic and instead sedated himself for the surgery with hypnosis.

Lenkei explained, “I asked them if I could do the operation with hypnosis. They agreed because they realized I’ve got a track record and I’m capable of doing it. I’m not averse to anesthetic—it’s just that my pain control is a hell of a lot better than the medical profession’s and I heal a lot quicker because my body doesn’t have to get rid of all of the chemicals. I have been using self-hypnosis since the age of 16 or 17.”

Dominic Nielsen, M.D., who performed the operation at Epsom Hospital in Surrey, said it was “nerve-wracking” making the first incision “not being sure whether he would be able to feel it, but once we got through that bit it became very much like doing any other ankle replacement.”

According to Nielsen, Lenkei hypnotized himself in a very short period of time and told the surgeon when he was ready for him to proceed. “He seemed to just put himself into a trance if you like and just lay there and did not have any problems at all. The whole set-up was exactly the same as it would have been for somebody under a general anesthetic, ” he said.

Nielsen did say that an anesthesiologist was on hand in case the hypnosis failed during the operation. “If it became painful, or something about his heart rate or blood pressure became unsafe, then he would have been in a position to have anesthetic within a split second.” he said.