Dear Colleagues:

The case I have to report had none of these issues. In fact the patient was an otherwise healthy 52 year-old woman who presented with five years of productive cough, bouts of fatigue and fever, and a feeling of heaviness over her left chest. Only once (10 years before) had she ever had a lung problem, an infection that cleared after a few days of antibiotics.

Investigations led to bronchoscopy during which a half-cup of fluid was removed from a bronchial cavity. Microscopy showed "tuberculous-like" organisms, but not Tb.

The patient's medical history was unremarkable except for a previous caesarian section and an umbilical hernia repair. She was mother of 10 children with five children still at home and had been separated from her husband for 10 years. She was physically active, a runner and a basketball player. Her reason for consulting me was to look for an alternative to an 18-month course of drug therapy "with very grim side effects".

On my first examination she appeared in good health but looked mildly depressed. A careful examination including autonomic response testing indicated an interference field in the mid-precordium. The arm weakening that occurred with touching the mid-chest reversed when the patient touched her own forehead (an indication of an emotional cause of the interference field).

(Applied psychoneurobiology is an ultra-quick form of psychoanalysis in which the therapist and patient are guided to the source of the problem through the patient's autonomic nervous system responses. The therapist issues a series of emotionally connected statements to which the patient responds by a strengthening or weakening of an indicator muscle. The autonomic response serves as a sort of "truth detector".)

A second session of applied psychoneurobiology 6 weeks later revealed that the patient did not herself have an unresolved emotional conflict, but rather was carrying one for her husband - an "inability to express himself". Eye movement desensitization wearing the appropriate coloured glasses resulted in a profound yin state and open autonomic regulation. At the close of the session, the patient declared that she was aware that her husband had always had difficulty taking responsibility for their (many) children.

Six weeks later she reported "a couple of bad days", with a bruised feeling in her chest, coughing and fatigue. However autonomic response testing indicated open autonomic regulation, no interference fields and therefore no further need for treatment.

She decided against drug treatment and reported recently (1 ½ years later) that her health is good and that she has "no persistent coughing at all". Her latest sputum test showed no evidence of the abscessus mycobacteria present at the onset of her illness and her specialist concluded that there "must have been a lab error in the first diagnosis". "Good news all around" was my patient's opinion.

"Bronchiectasis is not curable" say the textbooks. That may be so, but the autonomic nervous system still may have a major influence in how bronchiectasis or any other disease expresses itself. Even "incurable" conditions should be evaluated for the autonomic nervous system's reaction to the disease process. Neural therapy may still play a role.

Post-script:

I have recently been discussing the terms "neural therapy" and "regulation therapy" with Dr Johanna Osztovics of the Austrian Society of Neural Therapy. In some circles, regulation therapy has been proposed as an alterative term for neural therapy. However Dr. Osztovics explains that the Austrian group uses the term "regulatory medicine" as an "umbrella term for all treatments that help the system to re-establish the body's inner resources. This would include acupuncture, osteopathy, homeopathy and good old Sebastian Kneipp's bathtaking".

The question remains: should energetic methods of treating interference fields (e.g. Tenscam and laser - achieving the same results as procaine injections) be called neural therapy or not? Should applied psychoneurobiology, which also treats interference fields, be called neural therapy? What about osteopathy that treats somatic dysfunction, which behaves identically to interference fields?

One solution would be to call the classical neural therapy that uses caine injections, "neural therapy according to Huneke", but some proponents would say that "neural therapy according to Huneke" requires the use of Impletol, (procaine with added caffeine).

Personally I don't feel strongly about the terminology, but I would be interested to hear what others think. I suspect that our German and Spanish speaking readers have already given this much thought.

Letters in response to newsletter on "piercing":

Another interesting newsletter. The role of interference fields are far too often overlooked in conventional and complementary medicine. There are some extraordinary cases on interference fields that have been published in the literature or online. For example:

1)      Here is a an interesting case that I have seen presented in person by Dr. Yoshiaki Omura  that may be of interest to your subscribers: "Metal Tongue Ring leading to Sudden Cardiac Death after drinking beer."  A video (about 39 minutes) of this particular case report by Dr. Omura can be seen at: http://vimeo.com/10155128. This report demonstrates the potential dangers (as quantified by Dr. Omura using Bi-Digital O-Ring Test (BDORT)) of having foreign bodies in or on the body. The location of the metal tongue ring appears to affect the rising part of the T wave making the heart vulnerable to fibrillation.

2)      Dr. Omura has published another interesting paper on interference fields called "Metal Ring on 4th or 5th Finger Markedly Increases both Cardiac Troponin I at Left Ventricle And Cancer Related Parameters such as Oncogene C-fos Ab2 & Integrin Alpha5 Beta1 by 4 to 12 times. Thus These Metal Rings Appear To Promote Both Heart Problems & Cancer." Acupuncture & Electro-Therapeutics Res. Int. J., Vol. 35, pp 45-69, 2010.

John Suzuki

Laguna, CA, USA

I always check for piercings as interference fields and not infrequently find them, especially ear piercings and those of the umbilicus.

My Acupuncture mentor and teacher, Dr. Steven Aung, said referring to piercings and tattoos, "first you tattoo or pierce your mind".  There is a reason they are doing this and it often leads to other areas of healing.

Rob Banner MD

London, Ontario, Canada

I also have had several patients with piercings.  I found them very resistant to removing the metal.  It must be that they are controlled by peer pressure or emotional discord instead of reason. 

Charles Crosby DO,

Orlando, Florida, USA

Earrings in the lower ear lobe are tolerated because piercings here are already incorporated into the genetic information through thousands of years of the human being.

But earrings in others parts of the body sometimes are interference fields; - sometimes not. The reason is the same as in many other cases, depending on regulation mechanics or Speransky's second hit. But we have to keep in mind to always look for interference fields from any small objects. The same applies to orthopaedic material, plates, scres, pins, etc. Most of the time they are not interference fields, but in a very few cases I have found they behave like interference fields.

best regards Robert,

Carlos Chiroboga MD

Guayaquil,

Ecuador

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------