The drug-free treatment helping chronic pain sufferers

You see lots of remarkable and sometimes inexplicable things in this job.

Watching the transformation of Chloe Davenport was one of them.

Few of us in the A Current Affair office had heard of Complex Regional Pain Syndrome (CRPS), a disorder that affects thousands of Australians where the skin of sufferers becomes so sensitive it can’t even be touched.

Usually it happens after an accident and the brain just fails to flick the pain switch off long after the accident region has cleared up.

There is no cure for this condition and sufferers generally have to live with continuous pain for the rest of their lives.

Chloe was just 14 years old when struck down with CRPS and her family reached out to us to show people what sufferers like her have to go through.

They also hoped Chloe’s friends would understand more about why Chloe couldn’t do all the things her friends could and why she had so much time off school.

After our story aired hypnosis expert Mark Stephens contacted me and said he’d like to try working with Chloe.

I had done many stories with him over the years and every time he had tremendous success, be that with people wanting to lose weight, stop smoking or get over their addictions.

Chloe had nothing to lose so I put him in contact with her family. There was some initial success and a few relapses along the way but suddenly Chloe’s condition started to disappear and she was getting her life back.

For six long weeks Mark worked with Chloe using self-hypnosis techniques and meditation.After all, this is the subconscious mind and the part of the body that was telling Chloe she was in pain when really she wasn’t.

Her parents Grant and Mandy said the difference was "unbelievable".

"Seeing her not in pain constantly, it's been fantastic," Mandy said.

When we first met her Chloe’s limbs were swollen, red and incredibly sensitive to touch. So much so she cried if we brushed a feather on them.

Six weeks later she was playing tennis, soccer and table tennis. Laughing and enjoying life.

Was it a cure? No.

Her progress was overseen by pain management specialist Dr Karen Richardson throughout and as she explained, this was relief, not a cure.

Hypnosis works for around 70 percent of people and is widely used in conjunction with medication and other treatments from doctors.