History of Neural Therapy

History and Introduction

Initially developed in Germany during the early 1900’s, Neural Therapy, is beginning to re-emerge as a simple and effective treatment for chronic pain and many other types of chronic illness. The first applications of neural therapy were performed in 1925 by brothers Ferdinand and Walter Huneke. Neural therapy is not based on the treatment of nerves as the name implies but rather based on the premise that illness may result from a nervous system that has become unregulated or temporarily damaged or distracted. In actuality, neural therapy is more of a type of bio-regulatory therapy or holistic therapy who’s goal is to produce a positive response to the whole system.

For example, have you ever had the experience where you tried to turn on an appliance or lamp and it didn’t come on? There could be several reasons why, although we usually assume that the computer is broken or bulb has gone bad. Have you ever incorrectly changed the bulb only to find out that the light wasn’t working because the lamp wasn’t plugged in? Neural therapy is like making sure the lamp is plugged in. Its a therapy to make sure the correct electrical energy is flowing to the lamp, or in this case, to your heart, your brain, your muscles and every other cell and part of your body. Our body communicates through electricity. Neural therapy is a way to make sure the correct energy is going to all the important places in your body. The nerves in our bodies ultimately control everything…from blood flow to muscle movement to all aspects of digestion and healing. Its like making sure the wiring in your house is right.

Neural therapy is now gradually being adopted by medical communities throughout the world with cases demonstrating many remarkable healing outcomes. The Neural Therapy technique primarily involves the injection of local anesthetic called Procaine into scars, trigger points, tendon and ligament insertions, peripheral nerves, autonomic ganglia, and different tissues. Neural therapy is based on the belief that there is an extracellular matrix or mesh-work of fibrous tissue that connects every cell in the entire body to every other cell. It also believes the same pathways or roads in the body can lead to both illness and recovery and that with support, any illness has the potential to heal. Based on the concept of the extracellular matrix, or ECM, chronic pain and illness result from long-term disruption and irritation of this complex electrical matrix system. These disruptions can occur either structurally, biochemically or electrically.

Neural therapy uses the re-polarizing, or electrical resetting property of Procaine to re-establish a functional, healthy electrical charge around cells. This in turn allows for proper cellular and ECM functions and eventual homeostasis throughout the entire autonomic nervous system. Neural therapy is used to correct “interference fields” or disruptions of the autonomic nervous system. The location of the interference field can be in the vicinity of the patient’s actual pain, or may be in an entirely different location in the body. Or in other words, the pain is not always coming from the place where you feel the pain. The therapy outcomes range from gradual improvement after repeated treatments to an immediate complete relief of symptoms, referred to as a “lightning reaction”.

The sincere goal of finding safer ways of caring for helping my patients led me to neural therapy in 2012.

As a biologic dentist, I want to make a positive impact with regard to all areas of my patients health when I perform my dental procedures.