Michael Franzblau, MD

This man is a true gem. He isn’t one of those docs with a loose pen for prescription drugs and send me on my way. He actually cares. He has a way with people, and quite honestly, he is a healer of the soul.

Dr. Michael Franzblau is an extremely effective hypnotherapist. He uses his many years of experience in the field of psychiatry to achieve his goal of reducing his patients’ pain. He has been successful in reducing the various pains I have been experiencing for at least 38 years, including those caused by a 40 foot fall, three open heart surgeries, post operatic neuropathy, tendonitis, and arthritis.
Dr. Franzblau has given me back my spirit, by giving me a real working alternative to the required opiates. He reduced some enormous pains I experience as outcomes of a very long series of accidents and operations to nearly nothing. Dr. Franzblau and the recordings he made for me, are giving me many near pain free days, as well as nights of true sleep, and a renewed interest in living life to its fullest.
Everything may have started with a ledge giving way at Black Star Canyon waterfall and ‘landing’ 40 feet lower shattering my hip on a boulder in February ’75 …
After eight weeks in traction for broken hip and pelvis, an infection may have been pulled in when pins were removed. This infection eventually settled on my aortic heart valve. That valve was replaced twice; with a xenograph in ’77 and later with a St. Jude mechanical valve in ’87. The later causes me to have to take the anticoagulant Coumadin daily.
Following my psoas major muscle failing June 1^st of 2010, and because of that not being able to lift my right knee more than about 5 degrees, I fell in my home and was hit by my walker. This resulted in compartment syndrome in my right thigh, doctors equate compartment syndrome pain to the pain experienced at childbirth. The doctors that wanted to treat this extreme pain had a very hard time diagnosing it correctly, because I was not able to lift my right knee due to the above falling of my right psoas major. This psoas major injury was actually not even vaguely diagnosed until February of 2013. However its symptoms camouflaged the described standard symptoms of compartment syndrome until the doctor walked in at a pain spike resulting from the Dilaudid medication running out. At that time they decided that the pain and swelling was caused by compartment syndrome (2 compartments), and an emergency decompression fasciotomy was performed (08÷15÷10). The predicted 18 month recovery period for this surgery turned out to be much longer. This may have been caused by still not being able to walk without a cane, and physical therapy not being possible, since «I don’t have a leg to stand on» due to the psoas major still being atrophied, and an enormous, open heart operation. The later had resulted from the very thorough pre-​artificial hip revision operation check at Harbor UCLA. The echocardiogram showed a very large aortic aneurysm (7.8 cm) and dissection (7/06/’11). This aneurysm and dissection was operated on by another amazing doctor, the chair of cardio-​thoracic surgery at Harbor UCLA (11/15/’11).
Since this last operation, my pains have included neuropathy of the compartment fasciotomy scar; arthritic pain near the vertebral column after having the rib cage forced open for more than ten hours, neuropathy at the open heart surgery’s bypass scar that needed to be in the left groin (cardiac operation on the aorta does require that bypass to occur far away from the worksite); pain around the ’06 total hip implant that replaced the badly broken original; and arthritic pain still occurring in the right shoulder on which I landed during the fall that many years ago.
Even though I still need to take the daily doses of medication prescribed by the Harbor UCLA pain clinic, Dr. Michael has made it possible to WANTto get up and enjoy each day without taking the break-​through medication that were required to survive physically, as well as mentally.

I am a physician specialist who developed hyperacusis and tinnitus about 2 ½ years ago as an adverse side effect of medications. I was advised by 2 ENT surgeons that there was no good treatment for this condition and I must learn to live with it. The neuro-​otologists said that there are some things that can improve tinnitus including a low sodium diet and sometimes steroid therapy as well as hearing aids. I searched the literature and began to find some things that were helpful and many that were not. I am pleased to say that hypnosis has been very helpful for me. I have been treated by 2 prior therapists who definitely helped me but eventually the improvement reached a plateau and I stopped after about a year.
I met Dr. Michael Franzblau at the Los Angeles Tinnitus Support Group that has meetings at the UCLA medical plaza. He is very insightful and compassionate and I learned that he is a psychiatrist who specializes in psychotherapy psychoanalysis and hypnotherapy. I decided to ask him to use hypnosis to try to further improve my tinnitus with several goals in mind. My first goal was to try to sleep longer each night because when I wake in the middle of the night my tinnitus is the loudest and it is often difficult to go back to sleep. I also wanted to record the hypnosis sessions so that I could replay them at night when I wanted to go to sleep.
My second goal was to further reduce the intensity of the tinnitus or the annoyance factor. I also wanted to decrease the use of ear phones and recorded sounds that help mask the tinnitus.
My third goal was to be able to improve a ventricular arrhythmia. I could benefit from taking a beta blocker but each time I tried my tinnitus would get worse. I decided to ask Dr. Franzblau if he could help me with the abnormal cardiac rhythm and to be able to take a beta blocker without increasing my tinnitus.
I had 5 sessions of evaluation and hypnosis. The first 2 were effective in allowing me to take the beta blocker without increasing my tinnitus.
The 4^th session has been the most effective at allowing me to sleep quickly and for a longer duration increasing from an average of 3 – 4 hours to an average of 6 – 8 hours. I now rarely wake up before daylight.
I also noted a general reduction in my tinnitus intensity which I abbreviate as Ti in my daily record. I now have entire days when my Ti0−1 which is when I can barely hear it and I have periods when I don’t notice it at all.
I have not had to repeat the other recorded sessions and I use the 4^th hypnosis session every night. I am very pleased with his use of hypnotherapy for my tinnitus and I found Dr. Fransblau to be highly skilled thorough and compassionate. These are the highest compliments that I believe I can give to another physician. I will always be grateful for his skill and care and I expect that there may be other times when I will ask for his help in the future.