Dear Colleagues:

The feedback from my e-newsletters is the main reason that I continue to write them, now for 5� years.  It is satisfying to know that they are being read, that they provoke discussion and sometimes raise questions. A recent letter is an especially interesting one, because it is coming from a physician who is already practicing neural therapy at a reasonably advanced level (judging from his use of spheno-palatine and vagus nerve blocks):

Dr. Kidd,

I have an unusually tough neural therapy case I'm hoping that you'll be willing to discuss with me. I am treating a woman with right -sided sublingual pain that manifested during a Lyme infection eight years ago.  I continue to get temporary results (up to one week) with Vagus and Sphenopalatine ganglion shots, and improved my outcomes by adding B12 to her regimen.  I suspect that mercury in her mouth may be thwarting my efforts, but I am unable to connect the mercury to her condition using my applied kinesiology testing.

I felt that this question warranted a telephone call.  (The physician-correspondent lives in the North Eastern US).  I was at first puzzled that he was obtaining responses to neural therapy of the spheno-palatine ganglion and vagus nerve, and not the submandibular ganglion, but that was indeed what he was getting.  And he has been getting these responses repeatedly.

Until proven otherwise the limited duration of the responses is indeed due to the mercury from the patient's amalgam fillings.  Mercury diffuses readily into the oral tissues and can be sequestered there for a long time.  Mercury should be considered a contributing factor to any interference field in the head and neck, in patients with (or who have had) amalgam fillings.  Simply put, mercury makes nervous tissue irritable and electrically unstable.

Upon questioning our correspondent's applied kinesiology testing method for mercury, he explained that he was "two-pointing" for interference fields in one or more of the nearby amalgam-filled teeth. This was not an unreasonable idea, as ganglion interference fields often do have associated interference fields in the area that the ganglion "covers".  However any toxic effect on a ganglion can and should be tested for in a more direct way. 

The most direct method is to simply:

1. put a finger on the interference field and test for indicator muscle strength;
2. put a specimen of the toxin on or near the patient (a mercury thermometer works well for mercury);
3. repeat the strength test of the indicator muscle;
4. look for a change in strength.

If the muscle strength changes - weak to strong or strong to weak - because of the presence of the toxin, we can be confident that the toxin is affecting the interference field.

If no response occurs, and the toxin is still suspect, one can try challenging with an antidote to the toxin.  In the case of mercury, DMPS or DMSA will often work.  (Put them on or near the patient in the same way as with the toxin). 

Occasionally a substance that is needed in the detoxification process, e.g. vitamin C, electrolytes, chlorella, selenium, a glutathione precursor or glutathione itself, will cause a change in indicator muscle strength.  If a change occurs, one can then try to reverse the change by introducing a second challenge to the scenario, i.e. if vitamin C makes the indicator muscle go strong, and adding mercury into the field makes it weak, one can deduce that the patient will benefit from supplemental vitamin C, and the reason for this abnormal need is mercury toxicity.

Toxic effects on interference fields can be complicated.  As in our correspondent's patient, vitamin B12 supplementation helped to a degree.  However vitamin B12 deficiency is generally associated with many other nutritional, immune and toxic disturbances. 

For example, multiple large amalgam fillings are often a result of dental enamel hypoplasia (soft teeth), associated with gluten sensitivity.  With gluten sensitivity comes malabsorption and vitamin B12 is only one of many nutritional possibilities.  In the gluten sensitive, gluten can be a neurotoxin, adding further irritability to the patient's interference fields.

In my experience the most challenging part of neural therapy is not the finding and treating of interference fields, but rather the maintaining of a good response once the interference fields have been found.  This often takes time, experimentation and patience but the results can be rewarding for both physician and patient.

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