A patient had a National Health Service hernia operation without anaesthetic, relying hypnosis to withstand the pain.
    Alex Lenkei, 49, a hypnotherapist, a colleague hypnotise him for the 30-minute operation at Kingston Hospital, south-west London, and watched surgeons into his abdomen.
    "I fully conscious throughout and felt fine," he said. "The surgeon hit a nerve twice made me feel an instant pain nothing excruciating. My heart rate was steady and there was not bleeding."
    An anaesthetist was hand in case he his mind in mid-surgery.
    Mr Lenkei, from Surbiton, Surrey, trained for the operation with 20-minute hypnosis sessions every day which colleagues measured his sensitivity pain by screwing clamps on to his arms to see he could feel them.
    Senior registrar surgeon Tom Hennigan, repaired the hernia, admitted that he thought hypnosis was "a load of rubbish". He said that in hernia operations not enough local anaesthetic supplied, patients complained severe pain. "To have it done no anaesthetic at all would be torture," he added.
(from The Daily Telegraph, July 25 1996, by Tim King)