Self Hypnosis or Meditation as Alternative to Pain Meds

[schola]

I got my wisdom teeth pulled yesterday! While I was waiting in the dentist's chair, I decided to try a little bit of meditation to help me get through the whole ordeal.

It definitely helped me relax. The actual tooth-pulling process wasn't painful at all, but I think that was due more to the fact that the doc had numbed the back of my mouth into oblivion, rather than my meditation skillz.

I mentioned it to my dentist, and he said he once did a root canal on a lady who had her personal hypnotist come in and put her under prior to getting the procedure done. He said she went through the whole thing conscious and without any anesthetic!

So I'm curious, does anyone here use meditation or self hypnosis as a pain reliever? What do you do, and how effective is it?