Dear Colleagues:

One reward of sending out these monthly newsletters has been the interesting feedback received from readers around the world.  Comments and questions from many places have resulted in some stimulating discussions.

The last newsletter (on gluten as a neurotoxin) has generated the biggest response of any newsletter by far.  It is clear that the significance of this discovery is appreciated by many, and by some long before I did.  One correspondent wrote: " I am glad that I stopped eating wheat 25 years ago---I do miss bagels---but I know my brain works better on other fuels". 

Dr Margaret Taylor, of Australia wrote: "In my workshops for doctors and podiatrists, I teach prolotherapy and neural therapy, and strongly urge them to look for undiagnosed coeliac disease and (milder) gluten intolerance. I have been doing so since I started teaching it in 1998 - probably since I am a coeliac myself I am more aware of it. I agree it is a strong reason for non-response to prolotherapy and neural therapy".

Dr Rainer Kumm, formerly of Germany and now introducing neural therapy to the UK, has on a number of occasions updated me on the status of neural therapy in Europe and South America.   In the context of gluten sensitivity he comments: "Dr Barop who is I think the most important current text book author in Neural Therapy after Dosch constantly stresses the importance of the gut as Interference Zone in his seminars, such as last year in Baden Baden". 

Then Dr Kumm teases us (at least those of us who do not understand these languages) with this statement: "As for Dr. Barop, his books are translated into Russian, I believe also Turkish and Italian but not English.  From a didactic point of view Dosch is better, because of those numerous case histories, but Barop is more up to date with current research..." 

It is striking how many correspondents have already identified gluten sensitivity in themselves or family members.  My colleague, Dr Barb Powell of Ottawa, who has taught me most of what I know about this subject, learned about it the hard way - by she herself developing a host of serious complications, before her own diagnosis was finally made.

Again thank you for all the interesting letters.  Keep them up and if anyone has a short case history or other pearl that they would like to share, I would he happy to include them in future newsletters.

One last thing: a tip for prolotherapists (I sense from the correspondence that there are quite a few out there).   If the pain from the prolotherapy injections is inordinate or the pain worsens with treatment, an interference field may be present.  A case in point:

A 54 year old woman presented with two years of low back pain.  All somatic dysfunction was treated with manipulation and a search for interference fields was made.  None were found.  The pain pattern was that of the "theatre-cocktail party syndrome" and  the patient was in otherwise good health, so prolotherapy of the major low back ligaments was instituted using dextrose 12 ½% and procaine ½%.   After two sessions of prolotherapy two weeks apart, the low back pain was noticeably worse, an unusual development.

This prompted another search for interference fields.  Using autonomic response testing, one was found at the coccyx.  This was treated by neural therapy and the pain improved markedly immediately.  In fact the response was so satisfactory that no further prolotherapy was necessary.     

An increase in pain after neural therapy usually means that a more significant interference field has been missed, but is somewhere near by.  The same phenomenon is true with regard to prolotherapy.  It is always best to find and treat interference fields before instituting prolotherapy, but they are not always apparent right away.  Sometimes they are "below the surface" and do not appear until the situation has changed.  If the prolotherapy injections are unexpectedly painful, or the pain increases after the injections, think about the possibility of a latent (or missed) interference field!