Fear and Anxiety about Surgery Archives - Surgical Serenity Solutions

Do YOU have a fear of Anesthesia or Surgery?

Do YOU have a fear of anesthesia or surgery? So many people have an intense fear of anesthesia and surgery that they postpone needed surgery, that could greatly improve their quality of life, because they are afraid that they will be in a worse condition, or not wake up at all! Why do people experience fear this intense? There can be lots of reasons, as I’ll explain in this post…

Perhaps you come from a family of people who do not like going to the doctor because “the doctor always finds something wrong.” Perhaps you know someone who has had a bad experience with surgery or anesthesia. Perhaps YOU have had a bad experience with surgery or anesthesia.

The fact is, mistakes do happen, but in today’s medical world, surgery and anesthesia have never been more safe. Fear and anxiety are rampant! Everyone who is about to have surgery, has an extensive history taken by the doctors and nurses, about how you and other family members have responded to anesthesia in the past. Thanks to the internet, there is LOTS of excellent, reputable information on the internet.

Still, fear and anxiety are not always rational. If you have had an unexpected reaction in the past, or a close friend or family member has, you are probably going to be really scared and concerned. I don’t want to diminish that or say that it’s silly or unwarranted.

Research has shown that when slow, steady, soothing music is played for a patient that has a racing pulse and rapid, shallow breathing, the music can actually slow the patient’s heart and breathing down, and keep them steady! When this happens, the “relaxation response” kicks in. This is called “rhythmic entrainment.” The more relaxed your body and muscles are, the easier it is for the doctors and nurses to do what they need to do to help you.

If your muscles are tense and stiff, it’s going to take more medication to relax you, and more medication to wake up from and recover from. Yes, you also have to recover from the medication!!

So how does music help?

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By DrAlice|December 3, 2020|Anxiety and Pain Perception, Fear and Anxiety about Surgery, Fear of anesthesia|0 Comments

Reduce Pain and Anxiety During Surgery: A proven musical solution

Patient receiving anesthesia before surgery

Having surgery causes anxiety in most people. Just the thought of having surgery can induce feelings of helplessness and fear that are completely understandable. Having surgery means that there is a problem, something is not right. Even elective surgery, like cosmetic surgery, causes considerable anxiety. Patients experiencing anxiety related to upcoming medical/dental procedures want to avoid chemicals and the risk of addiction or negative side-effects. Some people are extremely sensitive to anesthesia. Perhaps they’ve already had a negative reaction to anesthesia but have been informed that they must have surgery for very valid reasons.

Medical facilities want to help patients feel less anxious

How can physicians and medical facilities help patients feel less anxious and perhaps reduce the need for anxiety medication? (more…)

By DrAlice|September 24, 2020|Fear and Anxiety about Surgery|0 Comments

Learn about the benefits of music with surgery!

Benefits of music with surgery

The benefits of music with surgery are very great, but the majority of patients are not aware of them! Nobody wants to have surgery and that’s a fact!! I’ve had just a few procedures under the knife and with general anesthesia and it is not a pleasant experience. But now we know that using the right kind of music for the patient, before, during, and after the procedure can make a huge difference in how the patients feels, and even in how the procedure goes!

In the early 1990’s I was given the amazing opportunity to work at the University of Louisville’s School of Medicine, conducting clinical research on the healing powers of music. It was such a dream job for me because I knew that music was powerful medicine in all kinds of situations, but my boss, Dr. Joel Elkes, said that the medical world now demanded empirical evidence that this was the case, and that I would be the one to gather this empirical evidence! Jump to 1994 and I was told that I need back surgery for a bulging/ruptured disc. By then, I know that I was going to have specially chosen music (by me!) to listen to before, during and after the procedure. I asked my surgeon, Dr. Wayne Villanueva if I could bring in my Walkman with three difference cassette tapes to listen to, and he that if I could also bring a friend to change the tapes at each juncture, that would be fine.

In July, 1994, I arrived at an excellent hospital here in Louisville, KY for my surgery. I had put together a tape of my my favorite slow, steady, soothing and comforting music for the entire procedure, ending when I was released from the recovery room. A friend changed the tapes for me as I left pre-surgery, and again when I arrived back into the recovery room. The doctors were amazed! They said that my procedure was faster than expected and that I required not only less pain medication and anxiety medication, but I actually used less anesthesia! I felt nothing of course, but I did really enjoy the music as I was wheeled into the operating room and the anesthesia began to take effect. In no time, I was waking up in recovery with the awareness of where I was and what had happened, but without the usual nausea and dizziness/confusion/brain fog.

Jump to 2005 and a fabulous conference in Cancun, Mexico that I went to, sponsored by the National Speaker’s Association. This was a conference on Product Innovation and this is when I came up with the idea for Surgical Serenity Solutions! To have pre-programmed headphones for the surgical patient, ready to go and deliver beautiful music, specially chosen for surgery, is a gift that is truly priceless! We now have models for the patient to buy as well as for the hospital to have on hand for the patients. I hope you’ll get yours today! Don’t wait til you need surgery? People are now using them for dental visits, insomnia, long plane rides and many more options! www.SurgicalSerenitySolutions.com!

By DrAlice|December 5, 2016|Benefits of music during surgery, Fear and Anxiety about Surgery|0 Comments

Pre-programmed headphones will make appearance around the country

With the addition of our new “patient” model headphones, we are beginning to get calls from around the country from hospitals, pain clinics, surgery centers, and dental centers. We’ve finally found a great headphone that is able to hold our patented and proven playlist and is quite affordable for these centers to GIVE to each patient. That way there is absolutely no concern about spreading bacteria between patients, and patients can continue to heal after their surgery to the same music that soothed them before and during their procedure.

After spending many hours in hospital waiting rooms I’ve experienced that high level anxiety that permeates the atmosphere of most of the patients. Just one week ago I was at a large hospitals waiting room downtown here in Louisville, KY and it was very obvious that they were understaffed and not well-prepared for the number of sick patients that crowded into every available chair. After being called back into an examining room, the anxiety was still quite palpable and even behind the closed door, I could hear loud conversations from both nurses and patients. There were even patients lying in the hallways and every interaction was quite public.

Imagine if this was you, and someone brought you a set of lightweight headphones with beautiful, calming soothing music to put on while you wait? My family member, of course, had some because I always keep some with me for demonstrations. It was really a huge relief for her because the noise level was so high and also the anxiety hung heavy in the air. Between conversation and examinations, she was actually able to sleep and tune out the noisy hallways and even the noisy nurses station.

If you are interested in getting our headphones into your local hospital or dental center, surgery center, pain center, or any medical facility, just get in touch with me through www.SurgicalSerenitySolutions.com and we’ll be happy to prepare an estimate for you. The research is there. Calm, soothing music makes a huge difference in reducing pain and anxiety in the surgical/dental setting.

By DrAlice|May 2, 2016|Benefits of cordless headphones, Benefits of music during surgery, Fear and Anxiety about Surgery|0 Comments

Will Surgical Serenity be covered by insurance?

Will the Surgical Serenity headphones be covered by insurance?

Waiting to go into surgery.

This is a fair question, and one that I get asked fairly often. The Surgical Serenity Solution has the capability to reduce anxiety before surgery, anesthesia requirements during surgery, and pain medication after surgery. The Surgical Serenity Solution can decrease nausea and vomiting in the PACU so that patient is able to be discharged to hospital room or home sooner and begin their overall recovery. This ingenious and revolutionary tool has the ability to create a win-win for both patient and hospitals by contributing to patient health, but also increase patient satisfaction scores for hospital and allowing them to have faster turnover and treat more patients in the same time period.

So when will health insurance start paying for this? The insurance industry is a conservative industry and I believe that they will require more studies on this, even though we have at least a couple of hundred in the last two decades. I believe that BC/BS of California already covers some tapes/CDs that have affirmations for healing on them and actually issues them to patients with various health challenges from chemo to surgery to depression. I see no reason that they won’t eventually cover the Surgical Serenity Solution, too.

In the meantime, we are working tirelessly to find a headphones that is so affordable for hospitals, that they can actually GIVE them to patients when they arrive at the hospital the morning of the surgery and use them throughout the process and them take them home to keep during their recovery and afterwards!

Are YOU having surgery soon? Do YOU want to use the absolute best music during your procedure and afterwards? Just go to www.SurgicalSerenitySolutions.com now and get some for yourself. They hold 4G of music, so you can add whatever music you want afterwards and use them for years to come. You’ll be so glad that you did!

By DrAlice|January 23, 2016|Anesthesia, Baby Boomers and Surgery, Benefits of cordless headphones, Benefits of music during surgery, Dangers and Side-effects of anesthesia, Fear and Anxiety about Surgery|0 Comments

New Hospital Program planned for Surgical Headphones

For the past 5 years we have been marketing our surgical headphones primarily to individuals who are preparing for surgery. After selling hundreds of these clinically and scientifically proven headphones with our proprietary music on them, we have decided to also have a different headphone that we will market to hospitals. The new headphones is intended to be given or issued to each surgical patient for them to keep and take home to continue using in their recovery.

We have put thousands of hours into this process and are excited to reveal that we are getting really close to having this new surgical headphone ready to provide to hospitals! With concerns about infection-control at an all-time high, many hospitals don’t want to re-use anything that they can make disposable. Although we wouldn’t call this new surgical headphone disposable, we do believe that the new price will allow hospitals to give all surgical patients their own surgical headphone and in addition, patients will have at least four different playlists to choose from.

When we went to the AORN conference in Denver in 2015, this nurse from Johns Hopkins hospital was extremely enthusiastic about our surgical headphones!

Of course we will keep selling our premium surgical headphone will 4 GB of memory and a battery life of 20-24 hours. We anticipate that dentists will buy these because they can more safely re-use them, as well as cosmetic surgery practices where price restrictions are not so intense. To order these, just go to www.SurgicalSerenitySolutions.com. We look forward to providing our proven surgical headphones to all patients preparing for surgery!

By DrAlice|September 14, 2015|Benefits of cordless headphones, Fear and Anxiety about Surgery, Fear of anesthesia, Fear of surgery, Headphones for other medical procedures, Music in the hospital, Research on Surgical Serenity Solutions, Surgical Headphones and HIPAA|0 Comments

Having a cystoscopy? Music can help you!

There are many medical procedures that are just really uncomfortable. A cystoscopy is one of those.

Cystoscopy may be done to:

Find the cause of many urinary system problems. Examples include blood in the urine, pain when you urinate, incontinence, frequent urinary tract infections, and blockages in the urinary tract.
Remove tissue samples for testing (biopsy).
Remove a foreign object.
Insert a stent. This helps urine flow from the kidneys to the bladder.
Treat certain problems. The test can be used to remove stones or growths, help stop bleeding in the bladder, or remove a blockage.
Inject a dye that is used for a special type of X-ray of the ureter and kidney.

Anything that potentially causes pain and discomfort is also going to cause a lot of anxiety. Anxiety in turn, causes muscles to tense up, instead of relaxing, which would make the procedure more difficult and potentially more painful. So, what’s a patient to do? MUSIC! Music is a known therapeutic and calming agent.

One of our happiest, most-satisfied customers used the Surgical Serenity Solution with her cystoscopy and reported “I was really not looking forward to this procedure. But I had been having some serious symptoms and cancer runs in the family, so I knew I needed to go ahead and have the cystoscopy. I ordered the surgical headphones and as soon as I put them and started listening to this beautiful music, I knew that I would get through it. I highly recommend this concept. They just take you to another whole world and make the procedure seem less scary and painful!”

By DrAlice|August 23, 2015|Baby Boomers and Surgery, Benefits of cordless headphones, Benefits of music during surgery, Fear and Anxiety about Surgery, Music with Cystoscopy|0 Comments

Abdominal aeortic aneurysm: Music Made a Huge Difference!

An abdominal aeortic aneurysm is a very dangerous condition. According to the Mayo Clinic website, “Tears in the wall of the aorta (dissection) are the main complications of abdominal aortic aneurysm. A ruptured aortic aneurysm can lead to life-threatening internal bleeding. In general, the larger the aneurysm, the greater the risk of rupture.”

Walking around with any kind of aneurysm is frightening and stress and anxiety is inevitable. This 70-year old gentleman had read about the Surgical Serenity Solution online and was very eager to give them a try for his upcoming surgery.

Like the vast majority of our customers, he had a very positive experience and was eager to return to my office and tell me about it! Listen as he relates what happened to him!

By DrAlice|August 16, 2015|Aeortic Abdominal Aneurysm, Benefits of cordless headphones, Benefits of music during surgery, Dangers and Side-effects of anesthesia, Fear and Anxiety about Surgery|2 Comments

Music after Surgery: 3 things you will love!

Whether you’ve used music before and during your procedure or whether you are introduced to it in the recovery room, the powers of the music will help you greatly! There has been so much written about music in recovery that there is absolutely no doubt that it will help in many different ways, but the top three are:

1. You will likely experience a greatly decreased perception of pain.

2. You will likely experience a greatly decreased amount of nausea and vomiting.

3. You will likely be released first from the recovery room, and them from the hospital much sooner because you will have less pain medication in your system and will begin to feel “normal” a lot sooner.

A study entitled “The Effect of Music Therapy on Postoperative Pain, Heart Rate, Systolic Blood Pressure and Analgesic Use Following Nasal Surgery. ¹School of Nursing, Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Kowloon, Hong Kong SAR, China reported that:
“The prevalence of unrelieved postoperative pain is high and may lead to adverse effects including prolonged hospitalization and delayed recovery. Distraction may be an effective pain-relieving strategy, and can be implemented by several means including affective imaging, games, and possibly music. The aim of this study was to explore the effect of music therapy on postoperative pain. Fifty-seven patients (24 females, 33 males; mean ± SD age 39.9 ± 14.35 years

[range 15 to 69 years] were matched for age and sex and then nonselectively assigned to either an experimental (n = 27) or a control (n = 30) group. Music was played intermittently to members of the experimental group during the first 24 hour postoperative period. Pain intensity was measured using the Pain Verbal Rating Scales (VRS). Significant decreases in pain intensity over time were found in the experimental group compared to the control group (p < 0.0001). In addition, the experimental group had a lower systolic blood pressure and heart rate, and took fewer oral analgesics for pain. These findings suggest that music therapy is an effective nonpharmacologic approach for postoperative pain management.”

With our Surgical Serenity Solution, we have observed patients with all kinds of surgeries, who have used music before, during, and after their procedure, get through the process faster and with fewer side-effects to the anesthesia and less nausea and vomiting afterwards. They’ve also needed less pain medication because music causes the patient to feel less pain. It’s been proven over and over for decades now.

If the hospital you’re going to doesn’t have music waiting for you, order the Surgical Serenity Solution now!

By DrAlice|August 8, 2015|Benefits of music during surgery, Dangers and Side-effects of anesthesia, Fear and Anxiety about Surgery|0 Comments

Have you seen the research? Check it out! Pre-surgical music results

When I was designing the choosing the music that I felt would be most helpful pre-surgery, I had three primary goals:

Calm the patient to reduce anxiety medication
Provide calming music through comfortable, lightweight headphones to decrease external negative stimuli
Calm the patient with soothing, steady music, so that when they get to surgery, they will need less anesthesia, having been significantly calmed through the music

Apparently, I am not the only one who has thought of that; there are quite a few studies out there on this exact thing and I would like to give you the citations for some of the best of them.

Music Benefits on Postoperative Distress and Pain in Pediatric Day Care Surgery
The Effect of Music on Pre-operative sedation and the Bi-Spectral Index (Anesthesia and Analgesia 2005 Jul; 101)
Relaxing Music as Pre-medication before surgery (Acta Anaesthesiol Scand 2009 Jul:53)

All of these studies were looking at calming and relaxing the patient before surgery with music, and all achieved this goal! With increased emphasis on patient satisfaction and non-chemical interventions, the Surgical Serenity Solution is destined to be in hospitals around the world within the next decade!

Yes, there is lots of different pre-existing music that would fill the bill, and yes, you can create your own playlist and take it into surgery on an iPod. But why not let a clinical musicologist do it for you? I’ve spent nearly 50 years of my life studying all kinds of music and the effect it has on the human body. I’ve put it on lightweight cordless headphones for you and they’re ready to go! iPods are covered with germs, unless you buy yourself a brand-new one. Also the cord that connects it to ear-buds or corded headphones can get tangled with other OR equipment and block the airway if an emergency emergency airway needs to be created.

The proof is there! Get your headphones now!

By DrAlice|August 6, 2015|Benefits of cordless headphones, Benefits of music during surgery, Fear and Anxiety about Surgery, Fear of anesthesia|0 Comments