Neural Therapy
Photo by Jairo Alzate from upspalsh
What IS Neural Therapy?
Neural therapy, a form of injection therapy, is a treatment that is used to treat acute and chronic pain, chronic illness, and athletic injuries. This therapy was first developed in Germany and is used as a common treatment throughout many European countries. Dr. Colleen has chosen to use neural therapy in her practice because it is extremely safe, quick acting, has limited side effects, reverses the disease process, restores tissue to its normal functioning state, and offers long lasting results.
The neural therapy procedure consists of injecting procaine into and under the skin, allowing small amounts of medicine to be delivered to the treatment site. The treatment can provide weeks to months of relief as the skin naturally has a built-in time-release system. Neural therapy is effective for a multitude of conditions including pain, anxiety, depression and even gastrointestinal issues.
In the United States, “trigger-point injections” and “nerve blocks” are used all the time. The term Neural Therapy merely encompasses a broader (and much more powerful) technique of these modalities.
HOW does it work?
Our nervous system has two main operating systems. One division is the sympathetic nervous system that is activated by stress. It speeds up your heart rate, makes you burn sugar more rapidly, tenses your muscles, and in general increases your ability to "fight or flight." The other division of the autonomic nervous system is the parasympathetic nervous system. Its job is to promote healing, digestion, repair etc. While either system can overly operate, most people operate too heavily in the sympathetic system leading to an impaired ability to function at the cellular level.
Neural therapy helps to transition the body into a parasympathetic state therefore allowing repair and restoration of normal functioning. Normally an area of pain within the body is consistently firing nerve impulses and rests in a slightly aggravated or partially excited state. Injections into pain areas scramble the pain signal from the pain fibers to the brain, and help to reduce the pain fiber back down to its normal resting state, re-setting the proper communication so that the body can again see itself as well. When treating anxiety/depression, neural therapy is directed at reestablishing the parasympathetic dominance in the general central nervous system. Injections are performed in acupuncture points typically in a “crown” around the head.
One of the very special and unique qualities of neural therapy, specifically with the use of procaine, is that procaine is metabolized into DMAE and PABA, which are nutritive to the nerves, act as cofactors to help facilitate metabolism, offer antioxidant support, and have anti-aging qualities. Most importantly, these nutrients can be directed to specific areas by an experienced physician; this is a technique that is extremely exclusive and individualized to the patient that cannot be attained by taking these nutrients orally.
Conditions commonly treated with neural therapy (in general 3-6 treatments are required)
Back pain (acute and chronic)
Sciatica
Muscle spasm/strain
Sinusitis
Lung infections
Post-concussion syndrome
Depression (postpartum depression too!)
Anxiety
Digestive disorders
And more……
