August 2015 - Surgical Serenity Solutions

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

Surgical Serenity with Hand Surgery

Louisville, KY, has one of he most famous hand surgery practices in the world. Kleinert and Kutz have introduced procedures that had never been done before. Sadly, Kentucky has many farming accidents that involve patients losing hands, fingers, and arms. The brilliant surgeons at Kleinert and Kutz have pioneered procedures that involve re-attaching these limbs and digits in a way that is usually permanent. One their surgeons pioneered the first hand transplant over 10 years ago.

Using music with a surgical procedure like this can be extremely helpful. Can you imagine the panic and pain that someone who has just lost an arm, hand or fingers would feel? Being able to place the Serenity Headphones on a patient as soon as they enter the waiting area, immediately begins to calm the patient as other medications take effect. With risk of great blood loss, the headphones actually synchronize the heart rate and pulse with the slow, steady tempo of the music and allow doctors to stabilize the patient faster.

One of our customers had to undergo hand surgery with Dr. Kutz, and here is her report to us:

“I have had many surgeries, and this hand surgery with Dr. Cash’s wonderful Surgical Serenity Solution was the easiest by far. I went to sleep listening to the beautiful piano music, there was a lull and then I woke up hearing that same beautiful music playing. It was very orienting to me and I remembered immediately exactly where I was and why I was there. I hope the medical community will realize what a wonderful device you have created and will order them by the thousands!”

Sheryl Soderberg, Louisville, KY

By DrAlice|August 19, 2015|Baby Boomers and Surgery, Benefits of cordless headphones|0 Comments

Root Canal!!! The most dreaded procedure of all.

Nobody wants to have a root canal, right? I’ve had one; actually I’ve had 3, but they were all in one tooth, because some teeth, molars, have four roots. They are definitely no fun, but with enough novocaine and nitrous oxide, I got thru it. But who wants to be filled with novocaine and nitrous oxide. Numerous people have now used our headphones for major and minor dental procedure and they rave about the positive results, compared to previous interventions. Dentistry was actually one of the first professions to use the headphones back in the 50’s. It was called audio anesthesia and my dentist gave them to me. Needless to say, they were nothing like our solution. They were huge and clunky and had a five-foot long cord that everyone in the room was tripping over. I liked them, but they were heavy.

Listen as Suzanne tells her experience of using the Surgical Serenity Solution with her root canal.

By DrAlice|August 18, 2015|Benefits of cordless headphones, Benefits of music during surgery, Headphones for other medical procedures|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

British Journal reports on study: Music with Surgery

I’m interrupting my 30-day blog series on Music with Surgery, to announce a huge study that came out yesterday from the British Journal, the “Lancet.” This exciting new study from Lancet on music with surgery is literally “just what the Dr. ordered!” This was particularly exciting for us because we have been researching music with surgery since 1990 and got a US Patent in 2008 on a process for choosing the ideal music for before, during and after surgery, no matter what the genre.

Here are some of the postive and exciting findings that they reported:

Findings

We identified 4261 titles and abstracts, and included 73 RCTs in the systematic review, with size varying between 20 and 458 participants. Choice of music, timing, and duration varied. Comparators included routine care, headphones with no music, white noise, and undisturbed bed rest. Music reduced postoperative pain (SMD −0·77

[95% CI −0·99 to −0·56]), anxiety (−0·68 [–0·95 to −0·41]), and analgesia use (−0·37 [–0·54 to −0·20]), and increased patient satisfaction (1·09 [0·51 to 1·68]), but length of stay did not differ (SMD −0·11 [–0·35 to 0·12]). Subgroup analyses showed that choice of music and timing of delivery made little difference to outcomes. Meta-regression identified no causes of heterogeneity in eight variables assessed. Music was effective even when patients were under general anaesthetic.

Interpretation

Music could be offered as a way to help patients reduce pain and anxiety during the postoperative period. Timing and delivery can be adapted to individual clinical settings and medical teams.”

I hope that all of my readers will help us to spread this wonderful news. We hope to be in 6 new hospitals by the end of 2015! Please help us get the word out.

By DrAlice|August 15, 2015|Benefits of cordless headphones, Benefits of music during surgery|0 Comments

Music with a Breast Biopsy Surgery

Let’s be honest, getting a biopsy of any kind is pretty scary! One of the things that fear does to you is to cause your muscles to tense up, your breathing to become shallow, and your heart rate to race. Sometimes blood pressure goes up, sometimes is goes down too far. Going in to a biopsy, you don’t know if you’ll get a clear bill or health or if doctor will say you’re going to have to have surgery!

I’ve worked with many women who had to have a breast biopsy. I had to have one myself! Susan was a lady in her 50’s and reported that she’s an anxious person anyway. She contacted me when her MD said that he felt it would be wise to do a biopsy and perhaps a lumpectomy. Listen to Susan recount her experience:

The proof’s in the pudding! Susan is one of our many success stories! If you are having surgery of any kind, please consider doing yourself a favor and use the Surgical Serenity Solutions!

By DrAlice|August 14, 2015|Benefits of cordless headphones, Benefits of music during surgery|0 Comments

C-Section: How can you create a memorable experience?

One of the biggest populations to benefit from the Surgical Serenity Solution is women who are preparing for childbirth, know that they will probably have a C-section for various reasons. A C-section is considered major surgery, but the reason for it, ultimately is a happy reason. The normal recovery time for a healthy young woman is about a month.

The patient in this photo was waiting for her first child to be delivered by C-section. She happened to be a professional musician and was fairly skeptical about whether or not music through headphones could make a difference for the tremendously anxious and fearful patient.

Waiting to go into surgery.

When the procedure was over and patient was home with her new daughter, she had this to say: “I am so glad that I used the Surgical Serenity Solution! As it turned out, I was put in a big room with other women waiting for C-sections and they were very noisy, some fussing and yelling at their husbands, talking loudly on their phones to family members, some even crying! If I had not had these wonderful headphones, I don’t think I could have stood all the commotion. I took the headphones off for the actual delivery, but put them back on when I got to recovery. I’ve been using them at home just to relax when baby is sleeping and I look forward to using them for years to come!! Thank you Dr. Cash!”

By DrAlice|August 13, 2015|Common Fears in Surgery, Fear of surgery, Music with C-section, Surgical Headphones reviews|0 Comments

Baby Boomers and Knee Replacement Surgery: Important Information

The Baby Boomer generation is having joint replacement surgery at an unbelievable rate. It is definitely one of the most frequent surgeries that we Baby Boomers have. Although I have not personally had one, I have helped many people get through them with the help of the Surgical Serenity Solution.

There are many Boomers who have never had any kind of surgery and when they find that they are going to have to have surgery, they are literally scared to death. Many of them choose not to have the surgery because of this fear and terror. Because they can’t move around easily, they often gain more and more weight, have more and more pain, and eventually become house-bound, depressed and isolated!

But listen to this lady tell her story. She had undergone many surgeries and was getting increasingly fearful and anxious of the pain that she knew would follow. She found out that she really did need a knee replacement and had tied herself up in knots trying to decide whether or not to go through with it. A dear friend heard about the Surgical Serenity Solution, and decided to get the preprogrammed, cordless headphones for her friend!

Here is what she told me, about two weeks after the surgery:

By DrAlice|August 12, 2015|Baby Boomers and Surgery, Fear of surgery, Headphones for other medical procedures, joint replacement surgery, knee replacement surgery, Music with Knee Replacement|0 Comments

Having a hysterectomy? This woman felt it made the procedure a very different experience!

Each year approximately 600,000 hysterectomies are performed in the United States, i.e. a little more than one uterus for every minute of the year.Oct 3, 2014. Sadly, experts reports that as many as two-thirds of them are unnecessary! The hysterectomy is a traumatic surgery for women because it represents the abrupt cessation of the women to give birth, whether she has had children in the past or whether she never had any but had hoped to!

As a result, the woman who is about to have a hysterectomy for whatever reason, is in a uniquely fragile state, both psychologically and physiologically. The woman who is about to have a hysterectomy needs to be taken care of with lots of love and attention. This woman is a perfect candidate for music before, during and after her surgery. Such a woman was “Mary.” Mary had never given birth, but had wanted to before divorce and severe fibroids took away her options. Mary did everything she knew to do to avoid having a hysterectomy, but at age 53, her periods brought such severe pain and cramps that she could stand the pain no longer.

Mary loved music and when she heard that someone would help her choose her own favorite soothing music and create a CD just for her surgery, she knew this was something she wanted to do. Mary had a history of bad experiences with anesthesia because as a small person, it didn’t take much at all to put her to sleep. So she came to me, and together we put together about 60 minutes of her favorite classical music that would loop until she woke up in the recovery room.

Her first comment after she was back in her hospital room, was that the music had been wonderfully orienting to her when she began to wake up in recovery, groggy and confused. She reported that she had much less nausea and vomiting than previous surgeries and that she felt that the music had made a previously untolerable procedure, a tolerable one, and one that she was very glad to have over with.

This was before we had created the actual Surgical Serenity Solution, and was a precursor to the cordless, pre-programmed headphones.

By DrAlice|August 11, 2015|Benefits of cordless headphones, Benefits of music during surgery, Dangers and Side-effects of anesthesia|0 Comments

Pacemakers and Music: Information you should have!

One of the primary function of a pacemaker is to restore functional rhythm to the human heart. Knowing what we know about rhythmic entrainment, what could be better for the patient that using a strong, steady, soothing rhythmic pulse during the pacemaker implantation process!

According to the the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute:

“Heart pacemakers, artificial joints, intraocular lenses, and other medical implants are widely used in the United States, where an estimated 8 to 10 percent of the population has a medical implant. However, medical implant recipients often have unrealistic expectations of the risks and benefits associated with those implants, a technology assessment panel convened by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) has concluded.”

They continued:

“To address issues regarding patient expectations, the panel recommended that the informed consent process prior to receiving an implant include discussion of benefits, risks, potential complications, expected longevity of the device, need for follow up, and possible future examination of the implant. The panel also urged that attention be directed toward reducing legal and economic disincentives to medical implant retrieval and analysis.”

So, understandably, a person who is about to undergo a pacemaker implantation would be quite scared!! One of our Surgical Serenity Solutions customers had this to say, after his procedure was finished!

By DrAlice|August 9, 2015|Benefits of music during surgery, Common Fears in Surgery, Pacemaker implantation|0 Comments