Dear Colleagues:

I would suspect that most of you experienced in neural therapy know the "thrill of the hunt" - hunting not for antlered animals, fast flying fowl, or flitting fish, but for those invisible interference fields!  Searching for interference fields requires knowledge, skill and a certain amount of intuition, just as in hunting for prey.

In this newsletter, I want to make a quick review of different methods of detecting interference fields and then introduce a new technique which I have learned in the last year.  I suspect it will be new to most of you, but not to all. That is because I learned it from my friend and colleague, Dr. Carlos Chiriboga of Guayaquil, Ecuador. My guess is that many South American readers and a few others will already be familiar with it.

But first the review:  The search for interference fields always begins with a careful history. The most important clue is to find an injury, illness, or medical procedure - followed by a latent period of a few weeks - before the onset of the patient's symptoms. The triggering incident might seem inconsequential to the patient, or even be half-forgotten, but this may lead the physician directly to the interference field. (For more on history taking, see pages 34-36 of my book available at http://www.neuraltherapybook.com).

Physical examination will occasionally provide clues.  This should be part of the general examination, paying special attention to changes in skin color, temperature and moisture, tenderness in scars and sites of soft tissue injury, signs of inflammation and the complications of prosthetic dentistry.  Autonomic response testing, in its many forms will localize interference fields precisely. (See chapter 4 of the above mentioned book).

Sometimes the patient's history is so complicated (e.g after major accidents, multiple surgeries or illnesses), that it is hard to know where to start.  Here we need some sort of scanning technique to get an overall view of the body. 

For those skilled in osteopathy or other manual skills, energetic techniques can be helpful.  With careful attention, pulsations can be felt with the hands on or off the body emanating from interference fields. Alternatively, interference fields can be "visualized" with the physician's "mental eye".  In my experience these techniques work best detecting the larger interference fields, such as organs, the diaphragms, or areas of blunt trauma.

This new (to me) technique that I have promised to share involves palpating the radial pulses of each forearm. Dr Chiriboga calls it the VAS, or Vascular Autonomic Signal; Dr Nogier (of France) called it the RAC, Reflex Autonomic Cardiac test. The examiner's three middle fingers are placed on the radial artery with the index finger just below the radial styloid.  The amplitude of the pulse is graded under each fingertip on a scale of 1 to 3, three being the strongest.  

Each fingertip represents a zone of the body, the 2^nd the head and neck, the 3^rd the mid-body and the 4^th the pelvis and leg - for that side of the body.  (Vatta, Pitta and Kapha are the names-from Ayurvedic medicine).  Where the pulses are weak, interference fields will be found.  If the sum of the scores of all six pulses is 8 or less, an "energy leak" is said to be present. Energy leaks typically occur at sites of major trauma or at chakras.  For those knowledgeable about osteopathy, the chakras generally correspond to the diaphragms.  Manual techniques can repair these leaks.

I am always loath to teach a new technique or idea until I have tried it for some time myself. Dr Chiriboga taught me this last February and after a year of testing, I am now satisfied that it is a reliable and useful tool for zeroing in on the areas where interference fields are likely to be found.

I particularly like this technique because it takes no extra time. I always check my patients' pulse as part of the general examination. (A fast regular pulse indicates sympathetic dominance; a slow irregular one, parasympathetic dominance.)  VAS evaluation can be done simultaneously.   While counting the pulse, the strength of the pulse under each testing fingertip can be assessed and scored.

I recognize that practitioners of oriental medicine obtain a great deal more information from pulses than I am presenting here, but for Western-trained physicians, this is an easily learned and useful technique to help find those elusive interference fields!

Letters:

Dear Robert

I also think that gluten intolerance is a major problem in chronic pain and dysfunction - I see heaps of them in my practice. But have you seen the book by Mark Starr MD, a great exposition of mitochondrial resistance to thyroid hormone - he calls it Hypothyroidism Type 2. A major cause of high cholesterol and fatigue. A little spot of natural thyroid hormone might get her total chol down to 4 or 5. One of my patients went from 6.4 to 4.3 in 3 weeks.

Cheers from Australia

Margaret E Taylor

Dr. Taylor provided a patient info sheet and description of how she starts thyroid supplementation as an attachment.  I will pass it on to readers who request it.

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And from Dr Chiriboga in Ecuador:

I like the term Regulatory therapy, and I like most the 3 Rs:

REGULATORY

REGENERATIVE

REPOLARIZATION  ...........THERAPY

cch

Robert

Thanks once again for a well-written, thoughtful letter.  

I have been paying attention to fat malabsorption (and low ferritin) as a marker for gluten sensitivity, but I am not sure why it is so highly unreliable i.e. very gluten sensitive patients can have normal lipid parameters including triglycerides.  I wonder if it is more suggestive of a liver dysautonomia or if there is a combined malabsorption and inflammatory hypertriglcyeridemia.

I would find it extremely helpful if you would take the time to reference some of your more significant statements e.g. salt restriction raises cholesterol.

Richard Nahas

Ottawa 

Canada

Richard, 

The paper that I was referring to was published in the 1980s and I do not have it at my fingertips.  However here are a couple of recent good papers on the subject of salt restriction's effect on plasma lipids. 

Ivanoski O et al, Dietary salt restriction accelerates atherosclerosis in apolipoprotein E-deficient mice, Athereosclerosis, (2006)180:2, 271-276.

Nakandare ER et al, Dietary salt restriction increases plasma lipoprotein and inflammatory marker concentrations in hypertensive patients. Atherosclerosis, (2008) Oct;200(2):410-6. Epub 2008 Feb 11.

RK