A Guided Imagery Intervention May Offer Multiple Sclerosis Patients Some Respite From Two Of Their Worst Symptoms, Depression And Fatigue

    SAN DIEGO, CA, October 07, 2015 /24-7PressRelease/ -- A study conducted at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD) to test how Multiple Sclerosis patients responded to a novel guided imagery intervention recorded a 76% decrease in depressed mood; a 28% decrease in fatigue; a 29.7% increase in physical quality of life; and a 12% increase in mental quality of life.

Dr. Revere Kinkel, UCSD's MS Center Director is hopeful and suggests the need for a larger study, he said, "This open-label pilot suggested modest but potentially meaningful benefits that require confirmation with larger controlled studies prior to dissemination and adoption by other MS clinics."

Paul Mills, PhD, director of the UCSD Center of Excellence for Research and Training in Integrative Health said, "In addition to physical symptoms, many Multiple Sclerosis (MS) patients suffer from poor quality of life, including depressed mood and fatigue. Pharmacotherapies have not been shown to adequately improve these comorbid psychosocial symptoms. Healing Light Guided Imagery (HLGI) is a novel integrative therapy developed by an MS patient that simulates a light self-hypnotic trance state and findings from a preliminary intervention suggest leads to improvements in quality of life, including mood and fatigue."

MS medical interventions in the United States are all priced at over $50,000 per year. This new guided imagery intervention may prove to be the welcome respite MS sufferers have been looking for all these years. Interested persons with Multiple Sclerosis (MS) looking to receive Healing Light Guided Imagery (HLGI) can register at (http://guidedimagerypro.com) to receive 10 HLGI sessions at just $150 per session.

Paula Marie Jackson is a certified hypnotherapist and she shared with us how and why she developed HLGI, "In 1999, in just three weeks I had lost my vision, hearing, and walking and was soon diagnosed with MS. I spent 3 months almost completely bedridden. I had a lot of time to think lying in bed with severe fatigue and debilitating symptoms. I spent much of that time utilizing guided imagery and meditation to better understand these symptoms by diving deep into myself. I used my creative imagination and started guiding light into the body and communicating with the intelligence of the cells responsible for the disease. This produced a powerful transformation and in just two and a half months I had regained a lot of my energy. My sight, hearing, and ability to walk were also restored in time. I have since been fully mobile."

Ms. Jackson further added, "Northern California is known to be a large epicenter for MS occurrences. To assist with the demand for HLGI in this region, we have recruited and trained a very proficient hypnotherapist, Eva Clark, (http://www.mindbasedhealing.com/Eva-Clark.html) who is located in Santa Cruz, CA. Ms. Clark has extensive experience working with Multiple Sclerosis patients as part of her work with MSQLP."

The participants of the study received one session of HLGI per week for 10 consecutive weeks. Patti Knight, a former teacher with the San Diego Unified School District who is now on disability was one of the study participants who received HLGI and this is how she described her experience: "I feel that the mind is a powerful thing and that I can improve my MS symptoms using HLGI. My sister, who only sees me twice a year, told me, earlier in July 2015, that I am walking better than I have in years. My friends from MS Yoga, who see me sporadically, commented on the difference in my walking and yoga moves since I started HLGI." She added, "Thank you for giving me the gift of working with Paula and learning how to do HLGI. It was so nice to hear about a study testing complementary medicine instead of medication. I love that my symptoms have improved and I look forward to more improvement as I continue to practice HLGI on my own."

Patti had started her weekly meetings with Paula at the UCSD Hillcrest campus on February 11, 2015, and concluded with her final HLGI session on May 6, 2015. The study had a total of 12 participants. Six participants received HLGI and the other six received guided journaling.

About Guided Imagery Pro
(http://guidedimagerypro.com) offers Healing Light Guided Imagery (HLGI), a novel complementary healing modality to standard care, to Multiple Sclerosis (MS) sufferers. HLGI has recently shown promising results in a small pilot study at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD) (http://ucsd.edu). The preliminary data from the study suggests that HLGI helps combat depression and fatigue, the two major symptoms of MS, as well as improves the physical and mental quality of life.

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