Effective Treatment of Neuropathic and Polyneuropathic Pain with Regulation Medicine and Neural…
Because neuropathic pain does not appear acutely and progresses slowly, conventional medical approaches fail in most cases. More than 200 causes are listed for neuropathic pain disease.
The most common causes are diabetes, alcohol dependence, chronic medication use, chemotherapy drugs used in cancer treatment, chronic infections, environmental toxin exposure, and trace element and vitamin deficiencies.
Despite all this medical progress, the cause of approximately 20-30% of neuropathic or polyneuropathic pain is still unknown.
Neuropathic pain, a form of chronic pain that very seriously disrupts a person's way of life, is pain related to damage, dysfunction, or altered excitability of part of the peripheral or central nervous system.
There is not always a concrete, identifiable cause for the onset of pain; however, neuropathic pain can persist independently of the damage or its severity, and can even intensify over weeks, months, and years. This is very different from nociceptive pain, which resolves quickly once the stimulus is removed.
In light of recent studies, it is possible to divide the causes of neuropathic pain into two categories: central and peripheral causes.
Causes of Neuropathic Pain and Polyneuropathy
Polyneuropathy is one of the most common neurological diseases. It has more than 600 possible causes:
- Polyneuropathy most often occurs as a long-term consequence of diabetes or prolonged alcohol dependence.
- Medications, infections, vitamin deficiencies, autoimmune diseases, and genetic factors can also trigger polyneuropathy by damaging the sheath or interior of the nerves.
Despite all diagnostic advances, in at least one of every five cases ("idiopathic neuropathy"), the cause remains unclear. In the classical modern medicine approach, often only the symptoms can be treated. Regardless of the cause, the earlier neuropathic pain and polyneuropathy are recognized and treated, the better.
Neuropathic pain is usually described by the patient as an uncomfortable, strange sensation of burning or tingling. The most common neuropathic pain syndromes I have observed are diabetic neuropathy, postherpetic neuralgia, and pain associated with alcohol consumption and chemotherapy.
The diagnosis and treatment of neuropathic pain has become one of the pain syndromes most emphasized by both clinicians and researchers in recent years.
The Reasons for This:
- Growing recognition of pain syndromes that occur following nervous system damage,
- The fact that sufficient success rates have not been achieved in treating patients with neuropathic pain,
- The development of animal models in which possible treatment modalities for neuropathic pain mechanisms can be investigated.
In our country, diabetic polyneuropathy constitutes the most significant group among neuropathic pain syndromes. Although it is easy to diagnose neuropathic pain related to diabetes, it is quite difficult to treat.
It is known that at least 40-50% of all neuropathic pain develops on the basis of diabetes. Although a wide variety of views have been put forward regarding the mechanisms of neuropathy that occur in diabetes mellitus, as with other neuropathic pain syndromes, its mechanism cannot be explained with certainty.
It is also emphasized that autoimmune mechanisms play a role. However, this perspective is far from being a holistic one. Recent studies emphasize the effect of microvascular mechanisms, with the ischemia caused by endoneural and epineural vascular changes leading to nerve damage. When we look at the condition underlying this problem, it appears that the vegetative nervous system is not functioning properly.
The actual cause underlying the disruption of microcirculation is increased sympathetic tone, and the inflammation and circulatory disturbance that result from sympathetic overload.
Diagnosis of Neuropathic Pain
What matters most is first properly determining the subjective and objective parameters of the pain. This requires a detailed history as well as a thorough and comprehensive physical examination. The most important factors in the subjective assessment are determining the type and severity of the pain.
Although many different pain scales are recommended for this assessment, whichever scale is used, it must be remembered that a detailed history is very important for diagnosis.
A physical examination is important for an accurate diagnosis, but here, in addition to a comprehensive manual diagnostic approach and assessment of the motor system, an examination of the sensory system and the autonomic nervous system should also be performed.
Classical Treatment Based on the Modern Medicine Approach
Medications used in the treatment of neuropathic pain:
- Tricyclic antidepressants
- Anticonvulsants
- Antiarrhythmics
- Opiates
- Oral and topical local anesthetics
- Ketamine
- Capsaicin cream
can be classified under these categories.
Approaching Neuropathic Pain with Regulation Medicine and Neural Therapy:
Treatment of neuropathic pain is as varied as its causes. Treating the underlying disease is the most effective route. This means regulating blood sugar in the case of diabetes or avoiding alcohol in the case of alcohol abuse.
To treat symptoms, a holistic treatment that includes both conventional medicine and regulation medicine is often recommended.
- Neural Therapy
- Detoxification-chelation treatment
- Correcting vitamin deficiencies
- Trigger point therapy
- Manual Medicine applications
- Physiotherapy support to strengthen muscles
- Traditional Chinese Medicine Acupuncture
- Dietary changes
- Phytotherapy
- Homeopathy
In light of the growing body of studies in recent years, increasing knowledge about the mechanism of neuropathic pain will ensure that complementary medicine and regulation medicine take on a more prominent place in its treatment.
Conditions for the Application of Neural Therapy:
Unlike the conventional medical approach, neural therapy views polyneuropathic pain and neuropathic pain as a holistic functional disorder.
In the neural therapy approach, it is not only the patient's symptom that is treated; the goal is to improve the person's overall state of health.
A prerequisite for correct application of neural therapy is possessing very solid knowledge of anatomy and topographic anatomy. In addition to anatomical knowledge, mastery of the correct application techniques is indispensable. For this, rather than relying on textbook knowledge alone, one needs a mentor-apprentice relationship and to go through a proper training program. Neural therapy is an interventional method. To receive this treatment, you must consult a properly trained specialist in this field. You can find the list of physicians in Turkey who have received scientific training on this subject at www.noralterapi.com. I recommend that you not have neural therapy performed by anyone not listed there. As with any interventional application, a serious approach is required. From this perspective, whether this intervention is actually needed should be carefully questioned.
Viewed from this angle, the answers to the following questions—which I specifically emphasized in my "Neural Therapy" textbook published in 2010—should be sought.
- Is the intervention necessary?
- Do you have command of the skill and technique required for the intervention to be performed?
- Has the diagnosis and the cause underlying the disease been sufficiently investigated?
- Have you received sufficient training regarding the injection you are considering performing?
It should not be forgotten that every person is as old as their own matrix, that is, their ground substance.
When the mechanism underlying the development of neuropathic pain and the full range of complaints are examined, it is seen that at their root lies dysfunction of the vegetative nervous system (VNS) and a circulatory disturbance.
It will be seen that most of the sensitive and painful points found in the neuropathic pain picture stem from dysfunction in the vegetative system. When the origin of the dysfunction in the VNS is examined, we are faced with a picture of oxygen deficiency, that is, HYPOXIA.
When the patients' bodies are evaluated in terms of acid-base balance, it is notable that they show a strongly acidic constitution.
Neural Therapy and the Importance of the Vegetative Nervous System?
As a term, neural therapy refers to a form of treatment that functions using the body's own neurovegetative system. Regulation of the autonomic nervous system, or vegetative nervous system, which wraps around the entire body like a network, should form the main approach in combating neuropathic pain. All neural-therapeutic methods either supply energy to disrupted tissue or resolve energy blockages.
Neural therapy is a regulation treatment. A stimulus is sent to specific points or areas on the body with local anesthetics, and the body gives a segmental or supra-segmental response to this stimulus. This response guides us both in diagnosis and in treatment.
Based on my personal experience, we are often able to achieve success when neural therapy is applied to treat interference fields, particularly in the majority of patients with neuropathic pain.
In other words, disease affects not just one organ but the entire body. A dysfunction in the VNS, or dysfunction or stasis at a trigger point, does not affect only its local site and segment; depending on the chronicity of the stimulus, it affects the entire system. Neural therapy applied with local anesthetic to disrupted segmental tissue not only interrupts pathological reflex pathways but also repolarizes the disrupted cell membrane to its correct potential, thereby normalizing vegetative functions.
In other words, neural therapy applications regulate the complex dysfunction that arises from the vegetative nervous system.
When patients experiencing NEUROPATHIC PAIN are examined, two main problems emerge: PAIN and INSOMNIA.
When the pain in question is investigated and examined in depth, it is seen to stem from the ANS (Autonomic Nervous System) / VNS (Vegetative Nervous System) described above. As long as the VNS does not perform its function properly, circulation will be disrupted, breakdown products that form in the body will accumulate, and the body will become acidic. Under normal conditions, toxic substances can be eliminated through the lymphatic system.
Insomnia
When insomnia originating from NEUROPATHIC pain is examined in depth, it will be seen that hormonal dysfunction plays a role in its pathogenesis. The effect of stress on cortisol and the changes that occur in cortisol levels after waking from sleep are well known. In these patients, too, significant changes in cortisol and melatonin levels will be found.
Application of Local Anesthetics in Neural Therapy
Neural therapy requires injections into painful points, stimulation of trigger points, inclusion of the problematic segment in treatment, and regulation of interference fields identified through the patient's history and/or inspection during the physical examination.
Treatment with neural therapy in neuropathic and polyneuropathic pain achieves success by eliminating sympathetic overload, breaking the hypoxia chain that occurs in the affected region, halting inflammation, and increasing blood supply by resolving the blockage that has formed at the segmental level.
Sources I Have Drawn On:
• Nazlikul, H: Neural Therapy Textbook
• Nazlikul, H: Neural Therapy, Another Treatment Is Possible
• H. Barop's Atlas of Neural Therapy (Translator: H. Nazlikul)
• L. Fischer's Neural Therapy Book (Translators: H. Nazlikul and Y. Tamam)
• James W. McNabb, Joint and Soft Tissue Injections (Translators: H. Nazlikul and Y. Tamam)
• Weinschenk, S: Neuraltherapie
• Fischer, L et al.: Lehrbuch Integrative Schmerztherapie