What is Neural Therapy?

Neural therapy is a treatment method that originated about a century ago when two German doctors named Huneke revived and refined a previously used but nearly forgotten technique by keenly observing certain coincidences.

Neural therapy is a treatment method designed to use the autonomic nervous system through low-dose local anesthetic injections. The electrical potential of healthy cells decreases due to infections, trauma, and surgical incisions. If severe, intense, and continuous stimuli persist, the cells cannot recover. Unless there is an anatomical or genetic disorder, deficiency, or advanced degeneration in the person, injections applied to the skin with neural therapy can reverse and treat the processes of some diseases.

Neural therapy is an application that regulates the autonomic nervous system (ANS) and neutralizes the negative stimuli in disruptive fields.

How Does Neural Therapy Work?
The autonomic nervous system (also called the neurovegetative system) is a part of our nervous system that surrounds the entire body and affects cells at a cellular level. The basis of our diseases and chronic pains lies in bioelectrical damage within the ANS. Infections, surgeries, accidents, and physical or psychological traumas we experience throughout life cause problematic areas with bioelectrical damage in our body. These problematic areas are called “disruptive fields.” The bioelectrical damage in these areas can be permanent throughout life. Injecting into the skin of these so-called disruptive fields can correct this electrical communication disorder.

A “disruptive field” is the disturbance of the basic bioelectrical structure of cells. In a healthy cell, due to the effect of electrolytes in our body, there is an electrical difference inside and outside the cell. This difference, approximately -40 to -90 millivolts, is called the membrane electrical potential.

Negative stimuli coming from the diseased area spread throughout the body. While some of these are repaired by the body, others cannot be repaired. External factors encountered throughout life (infections, trauma, surgeries, etc.) have the potential to create disruptive fields. The stimuli coming from these source areas (primary focus) affect the ANS communication network and can create secondary foci in other areas (secondary diseased areas). Modern medicine tries to treat this secondary focus, which causes problems in treatment.

Past infection foci, traumas, surgeries, and improperly performed dental treatments have a high potential to create disruptive fields. Especially the head and neck region is dense with disruptive fields.

In neural therapy, repeated local anesthetic injections increase the electrical potential of the cell. The short-acting anesthetic agents used, procaine and lidocaine, have an electrical potential of about -290 millivolts. The application hyperpolarizes the cell. Each injection leaves some electrical potential in the cell until the cell reaches its normal -40 to -90 millivolt potential. When these levels are reached, the diseased cell turns into a healthy cell. Thus, the electrical potential of the cells in the disruptive field is raised to the required levels. Membrane stabilization is achieved and the negative effects of disruptive fields on the ANS are eliminated.

The ANS is a vast network that extends down to the intercellular fluid, also called the matrix. Within the matrix, metabolic, biochemical, and biophysical processes occur, and exchanges between intra- and extracellular substances take place.

How is Neural Therapy Applied?
Neural therapy can be perceived as an injection treatment, but the aim is not just drug delivery. The most important therapeutic feature is the identification of the disruptive field and finding the root cause of the disease by the physician.

In neural therapy, local anesthetic is applied by injection. Application areas include subcutaneous tissue, muscle tissue, surgical and scar tissue, joint spaces, and painful points. Injection is not applied inside nerves.

The crucial aspect of neural therapy is detecting the area for injection with a needle. This detection differentiates neural therapy from other standard local anesthetic injections and similar treatments.

Neural therapy is applied in sessions, with at least three days recommended between two sessions. Local anesthetics such as lidocaine and procaine are recommended in reduced doses (around 0.5% to 1%) due to risks of high doses and possible side effects.

In Which Diseases is Neural Therapy Used?
The main area of effect of neural therapy is the treatment of orthopedic and musculoskeletal nerve diseases.

• All types of headaches
• Regional musculoskeletal pains
• Chronic pelvic pain
• Fibromyalgia, tendinitis, sports injuries
• Carpal tunnel syndrome, chronic inflammations
• Spinal osteoarthritis pain
• Chronic pain in elbows, shoulders, knees, waist, back, and neck, herniated discs
• Facial paralysis, neuropathic pain, nerve injuries

In neural therapy, factors causing pain in patients are removed, giving the body time to renew and repair itself. During this healing period, improvements occur, body functions normalize, and complaints return to normal.

When Is Neural Therapy Contraindicated?

• Second and third-degree atrioventricular blocks, bradycardia
• Patients requiring acute surgery
• Decompensated heart failure
• Myasthenia gravis
• Patients using anticoagulants
• Malignancies and sepsis

Does Neural Therapy Have Side Effects?
Neural therapy is not a treatment method based on drugs.
It uses the effect of short-acting local anesthetics on the autonomic nervous system.
The stimulation caused by the needle on the skin spreads through the nerve network and bioelectrically corrects old nerve damages.
Unlike most other injections where drugs are delivered into tissues, in neural therapy, the injection is applied to the skin.
Only procaine and lidocaine are used as drugs in neural therapy, chosen not for their anesthetic properties but for their bioelectrical effects.
This treatment method has been frequently used in the West for over eighty years, and no side effects have been reported so far.