Helping Your Body Heal Beyond Good Health Clinics 2012 www.beyondgoodhealthclinics.com.au 1
What is Biomesotherapy? Biomesotherapy is a procedure whereby specific locations are injected with biological products or homotoxicology remedies. Most of these injections are given under the skin or into the muscles. This stimulates deeper organ systems known as a cutivisceral reflex arc. Oral homoeopathic medicines can be given simultaneously which focus upon the organ or tissue requiring treatment. There are over 70 million consultations in this therapy in Europe per year. It is a very popular form of Natural medicine. Its safety profile is excellent, according to one study it is as safe as taking oral homoeopathics. Examples of diluted natural medicines commonly used in Biomesotherapy are Traumeel and Zeel ampoules. They contain absolutely no impurities. When the body is activated it will not therefore be transporting additives and preservatives to the tissue the organ system being treated. Traumeel is used for inflammations and sports injuries. Zeel is used for tennis- elbow, whiplash and arthrosis. There are hundreds of different Biomesotherapy products available throughout Europe in clinical practice. Where are the biological medicines or remedies injected? People are often very surprised at the ease of the treatment. This technique cannot be compared with the injections given in conventional medicine. The needles are finer, like acupuncture needles, and inserted into a self-loading device called an `inject ease' device. Saline is inserted just under the skin or into specific muscle points. Some of these points are trigger points or acupuncture points. Acupuncture points are derived from ancient Chinese medicine, while trigger point therapy has its origin in the USA. Treatment into and around joints is also common. For example, if you have elbow pain your practitioner will look for several painful spots in the arm muscles and may treat each one. In most cases, several small treatments are given in a specific zone of the body at each session. What about the safety and efficacy of this technique? Practitioners of Biomesotherapy are using a technique that adheres to strict technical guidelines. They have a duty of care as a professional clinician. This involves using correct technique and sterile disposable material. This technique often has much less discomfort than the average acupuncture treatment. Beyond Good Health Clinics 2012 www.beyondgoodhealthclinics.com.au 2
Most of the products used for oral administration are made in Germany and are subject to strict quality control and manufacturing techniques. These products also meet Australian quality control standards. Biomesotherapy uses carefully calculated diluted substances, commonly known as homoeopathic potencies. Specific healing combinations of these medicines are used for particular conditions. The ampoules do not contain high concentrations of the active substances. These medicines contain low concentrations of substances, usually of plant and mineral origin. As a result, toxic side effects are very unlikely. Many of these products have been tested in modern double blind and drug monitoring studies. Many physicians are not aware that the research results have been successfully documented in current medical journals.the medicines used in Biomesotherapy may not be as effective as prescription drugs in the short term. Three or more sessions may be required before results are comparable. However, many patients may receive immediate relief from pain and discomfort after their treatment. How does it work? Biomesotherapy stimulate your body's own healing capacity. The body is encouraged to start healing itself. Many of the products used are formulated to relax muscle tension for example, when treating neck and from low back pain. Pain in the knee or hip region can have a muscular origin. This means it can be treated without touching the joint itself. The practitioner can also approach the body by working on the `major computer,' which consists of several bodily systems including the brain and nervous system. Biomesotherapy aims to normalize nervous system imbalance. This is like getting your computer in balance again. Practitioners who are familiar with natural medicine call this "neuro-regulation". Another important area of Biomesotherapy is detoxification. Detoxification literally means cleaning the body. Toxins that have accumulated in the body from the environment, poor diet or from medication are able to alter the immune's defence system resulting in inflammation. Toxins can also disturb the responses of your nervous system, causing pain and discomfort. These toxins are the reason why the body may not be functioning at its optimum level. Eliminating toxins (homotoxins) is an important strategy, especially when dealing with chronic diseases. Biomesotherapy helps eliminate toxins and normalize an imbalanced system. Some combinations of medicines are specifically designed for this purpose, and are used in conjunction with muscle point stimulation in oral preparations. Beyond Good Health Clinics 2012 www.beyondgoodhealthclinics.com.au 3
When do practitioners suggest using Biomesotherapy? It is up to your practitioner to decide if Biomesotherapy is appropriate for you. The majority of patients are treated with Biomesotherapy as an alternative for pain management. Although there is pain relief it is important to realize that Biomesotherapy does not suppress the symptom with conventional medicine. It simply reorganizes the body's information to support a healing response. Pain is an important warning that something is wrong in the body. The source of the pain reaction must be addressed. More than one treatment may be necessary for initial improvement. If your pain is recent it may be treated in two or three sessions. If the pain has been present for months or even years, it may take several treatments. After the first treatment it is possible you may feel a little worse. This is because the healing process is being activated. Your body may have to work on the cause of the problem and, in doing so, produces some discomfort. This means that real healing is taking place. Many practitioners use Biomesotherapy for minor orthopaedic problems. These include neck and back pain, ankle sprain, sciatica, frozen shoulder and Achilles tendonitis. Biomesotherapy is also very successful in treating sports injuries. This modality is often suggested for those who have tried orthodox medicine without success. Other patients experiencing medication side effects may be seeking alternatives. In some patients it may be advantageous to combine a conventional approach together with Biomesotherapy. It is not necessary to stop your current pharmaceutical medication if this is prescribed by your doctor. If in doubt, always contact your practitioner for professional advice on whether this therapy is suitable for you. Each case must be assessed individually by a trained Biomesotherapy practitioner. When is Biomesotherapy not indicated? Biomesotherapy cannot heal cancer, heart disease or AIDS. It is not suggested for treating serious disease such as diabetes, depression or epilepsy on its own. However it is useful as an adjunctive or supportive treatment modality to support the body s healing process. When serious tissue damage has already occurred it is difficult to reverse the process and bring the body back into balance again. Biomesotherapy is indicated for particular conditions and physical symptoms. Beyond Good Health Clinics 2012 www.beyondgoodhealthclinics.com.au 4
What kind of products are being injected? The base product is a 0,9% saline solution and local anesthetic. Additional products can be homeopathic or diluted. Commonly used in Biomesotherapy are, for example, arnica, echinacea, nux vomica and chamomile. Arnica is used for muscle pain, nux vomica is injected for digestive problems, echinacea is used to increase the natural defense system of the body. Biomesotherapy often use cocktails of natural homeopathic products. Traumeel for example is used for inflammations and sports injuries, Zeel is used for chronic joint pain, Spascupreel is used for muscular cramps and Lymphomyosot for lymphatic drainage. Hundreds of different cocktails are available these days. Are these products safe for me? The injected solution does not contain high concentrations of the active substances. As a result, toxic side effects are very unlikely. Additionally, some products used in Biomesotherapy are manufactured by companies that guarantee the production quality of their products. Most of the ampoules used for injection are made in Germany and are submitted to very strict quality control regulations and systems. Clinical studies on thousands of patients have confirmed the safety of ampoules like Traumeel and Zeel. How can these dilutions actually have an effect on my body? The fact that most ampoules only contain low concentrations of plant extracts is often a reason for conventional physicians to criticize the possible effects of these products. But one has to add here that the products used in Biomesotherapy are not diluted to the extent that an ampoule contains no active products any more (as in real homeopathy). That s why we call them micro-doses. So, it is more than just injecting water. How does this small dose influence the body then? When you receive a tetanus vaccination, only small amounts of a product are necessary to stimulate the immune system (= your defense system) against lockjaw. A few injections can protect your body for several years against such a serious disease! Biomesotherapy injections are not real vaccinations, of course, but the idea of the mechanism of action are similar: small doses of the right product can have a huge effect. And Biomesotherapy produces its clinical effects because it stimulates your immune system to restart its healing capacities. Has it been proven that Biomesotherapy works by stimulating my immune system? Biomesotherapy practitioners have experienced the effects of these injections for decades. But the problem was to prove to other colleagues how it really worked. Recent research on Biomesotherapy has given new insights as to how these products seem to do the job. A scientific investigation has illustrated that Traumeel indeed works via the immune system. (Your physician will be surprised to hear that the mechanisms of action of Traumeel include both inhibition of IL-1ß and inhibition of TNF-alpha Secretion.) In June 2004 an article about Traumeel was published Beyond Good Health Clinics 2012 www.beyondgoodhealthclinics.com.au 5
Mesotherapy in an important medical journal Clinical & Developmental Immunology which is a highly respected journal in conventional medicine. But how does Biomesotherapy work then to help me with my pain or inflammations? In conventional medicine, the actual drug you take suppresses your symptoms immediately. For Example, that is why you need to take high doses of chemical substances in order to suppress pain. And as soon as the medication stops working, you have to take another pill to kill the pain. The same goes for anti-inflammatories, medication to control your blood pressure or for high cholesterol. That s how these drugs are designed. However, in Biopuncture small doses of products are injected in order to stimulate the natural healing processes. These micro doses wake up mechanisms which are available anyway. So, the healing effect comes from inside your body - not from the products themselves. It s the reaction of your immune system which will produce the proper reactions to regain natural healing. The reaction of the body may vary from better local blood circulation to relaxation of muscles or local detoxification. Will Biomesotherapy help me as quickly as conventional therapies? It s obvious that injections of micro-doses are less powerful than for example cortisone injections. The dose used is too small to immediately suppress the inflammation. But that s not the goal of Biomesotherapy! We consider an inflammation as an important element of true and lasting healing. The goal of Biomesotherapy is to stimulate the natural inflammatory processes in order to get a complete and natural healing of the injured tissues. So, we do exactly the opposite of conventional drugs. As a result, the symptomatic relief may take a while, especially for chronic cases. But when dealing with acute injuries, the effects of the injections are apparent almost immediately. Where are these injections given? Most people - especially those who are apprehensive about injections because they may have had bad experiences with injections in their childhood - are surprised how easily and quickly these injections are given. In fact, these injections cannot be compared to the usual' injections given in conventional medicine. They are not as painful as an injection in for example a hospital because the needle used is very fine and the quantity injected is very small. Indeed, they look more like little pinpricks. Most of them are given into or just under the skin, others are given into specific muscle points or into your ligaments. Your doctor doesn t give the injections arbitrarily, but they are administered in carefully chosen spots. The place where the doctor injects the product is as important as the product itself. It s different for each patient. During the Biomesotherapy training course, health professionals are instructed what techniques to use and what products to inject. Beyond Good Health Clinics 2012 www.beyondgoodhealthclinics.com.au 6
How many injections will I receive each session? A lot of these injections are given at more than one spot during each session. For example, if your practitioner wants to work on your liver, he or she will give about 7 little injections under the skin on your abdomen. When you have pain in your elbow, your physician will look for several painful spots in your arm muscles or elbow ligaments, and inject each of them in one session. In such a case, you may receive anything from three to ten little injections in your elbow, neck or arm. So in most cases, several little injections are given in a specific zone (or in several areas) of the body at each session. How many sessions of Biomesotherapy will be necessary? The fact that your doctor uses small doses of natural products instead of cortisone injections means that you have to be more patient. If you have had problems for several months or even years, your doctor must work on different layers. If it is a complicated case, your health care provider must sometimes also look for deeper causes of your complaints and work on these. Sometimes your hormonal system has to be regulated. Or he or she must do a detoxification first before even starting to work on your symptoms. As a result, you may need five sessions or even more to feel better. When you realize that these products are natural products that do not show any major side effects, you may be motivated to be more patient than usual. In the long run, however, the results of Biomesotherapy are longer lasting because the healing comes from within and does not depend on the pills you take every day to take away the symptoms. Is there an element of risk with such injections? It is clear that the physician who decides to use Biomesotherapy, will always do so according to the latest technical standards. That is his or her duty as a medical professional. This includes a correct injection technique, and of course the use of sterile disposable material. The latter means that the needle has never been in contact with any other patient and that any transmission of disease (e.g. hepatitis, AIDS) is impossible. This should give you confidence in the safety of the technique. But you may end up with a blue spot at the site of injection the next day. What is a detox treatment? An important issue in Biomesotherapy is the detoxification of the body. It literally means cleaning the body. All the toxins that have accumulated in your body, for example from the environment (air pollution), from bad nutrition, or from medication (e.g. antibiotics and steroids you ve taken) can block your immune defense system. They can also disturb the reflex responses of your nervous system. All these toxins in your body are the reason why your body may not be functioning optimally as it did when you were younger. Eliminating all these toxins is an important strategy, especially when dealing with chronic diseases. Some injections work specifically on the liver and others on the kidneys or on the lymphatic Beyond Good Health Clinics 2012 www.beyondgoodhealthclinics.com.au 7
system. Especially, the cleaning up of the lymphatic system with Lymphomyosot is considered very important in Biopuncture. When should my physician suggest Biomesotherapy? Biomesotherapy cannot heal all your medical problems. This is not a miracle therapy. It is up to your family physician to decide what can be treated, and what can't. The majority of patients choose to be treated with Biomesotherapy because they are in pain and do not support the use of conventional painkillers. However, it is important to realize that Biomesotherapy isn t designed to take away' the pain as with conventional medication. Pain is seen as an important signal' from your body that something is going wrong. It is similar to a red light on the dashboard of your car: the aim is not to just take it away' but to look for the deeper cause. This means that if pain can be alleviated with Biomesotherapy - without prescribing painkillers - there is good reason to conclude that the deeper cause of that particular pain has been eliminated. I ve heard that things can get worse immediately after my first treatment. Is that correct? It all depends. Every case is different. Sometimes you improve immediately after the injection. It means you really feel better within minutes after the injections. Critics might describe such a phenomenon as a placebo effect by saying that you feel better because you believe you re going to be feeling better. In Biomesotherapy, such an immediate improvement is rather likely to happen when dealing with a fresh sports injury for example. But as stated before, when dealing with complaints that have persisted for months or years, things need some time to heal. You may even notice that after the first treatments (especially the day after the injection) you feel a little worse, experiencing more pain or discomfort after the first session. This is exactly the opposite of the so-called placebo effect! This temporary worsening of complaints usually means that the healing processes are being activated. In Biomesotherapy it is called the reaction phase. But when you understand that this means that real healing is on its way, you will be willing to accept these minor reactions in the beginning of the treatment. When should I consider Biomesotherapy? Most physicians use Biomesotherapy for minor orthopedic problems. Neck pain and back pain are good indications for Biomesotherapy, but one can also treat sciatica, ankle sprain, pain in the shoulder and Achilles tendonitis using these natural vaccinations. Biomesotherapy is also very successful in treating sports injuries, tennis elbow, golf elbow, and so on. However, Biomesotherapy is not just used for pain problems. An area of treatment worth noting is that of allergies and inflammations. For example, one can treat asthma, eczema and hay fever. And even patients with bronchitis, cystitis and sinusitis can be treated with this Beyond Good Health Clinics 2012 www.beyondgoodhealthclinics.com.au 8
technique. When a physician is experienced in the technique, he or she can also treat you for migraine, tension headache, Crohn's disease, colitis, Cluster headache, neuralgia, and so on. Who may benefit from Biomesotherapy? The use of biotherapeutic injections can benefit those patients who have tried conventional medicine but have had no success, or for those who have had to stop taking conventional medication because of side effects. It is an interesting healing technique for those patients who want to avoid an operation (for example for sciatica or sinusitis). In some patients it may be advantageous to combine the conventional approach together with Biomesotherapy. Many people still believe that one has to stop conventional treatments when choosing natural medicine. This is not true. When you are being treated with Biomesotherapy, you just continue the medication you were already taking. In case of doubt, always contact your physician first for professional advice. Each case should be taken into account individually, of course. When is Biomesotherapy not appropriate? Let us be clear about it: Biomesotherapy cannot heal you from cancer, diabetes, a heart attack or AIDS. Nor is it an appropriate treatment for high blood pressure, fibromyalgia, Parkinson, depression or epilepsy. In some cases, the disease is too serious or too aggressive, and can only be stopped through conventional medication or surgery. Your family physician will confirm this. When serious damage has already occurred, Biomesotherapy will be simply too late to reverse the damage and bring the body back into balance again. For example, a viral hepatitis can be treated with Biomesotherapy in order to support the healing mechanism of the body, but liver cirrhosis is a phase where cells are damaged beyond repair and healing is impossible. The same goes for chronic problems with the airways. Biomesotherapy can help a lot here as long as there is no emphysema or lung cancer involved. That is why it is so important to first have a diagnosis before starting with Biomesotherapy. I advise you to ask your family physician for advice in case of doubt. Conclusion Biomesotherapy is a safe and efficient technique in complementary medicine. It uses biotherapeutic injections to stimulate the natural self-healing capacities of your body. It is worth considering if it can help you with your personal health problems. Consult us for more information about Biomesotherapy. Beyond Good Health Clinics 2012 www.beyondgoodhealthclinics.com.au 9