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If you are a physician and are reading this newsletter, chances are you enjoy practicing medicine. You are curious enough to be looking "outside the box" for a better understanding of what ails your patients and then finding methods of helping them. You probably find that exploring all the possibilities is rewarding and satisfying,...perhaps even fun. I dare say this is not true of all our colleagues. I am now of an age where I see some of my generation retiring ‐ perish the thought! What is it that they don't like about practicing medicine? Others seem to never lose their passion for practice, (and even more encouraging) their appetite for learning. I know of one physician in particular who could be an example to us all and I would like to use this newsletter to honour him as well as to say something about learning neural therapy. The physician who I am referring to is Fred Cenaiko MD of Wakaw, Saskatchewan, Canada. Wakaw is a little place in northern Saskatchewan (on Canada's prairies) and Fred has been its only physician for 53 years. This means that he has done all the things that country docs did years ago such as delivering babies, removing gall bladders, setting broken bones, treating medical conditions acute and chronic, fixing sore backs, counseling, etc., as well as serving as town mayor and taking part in church and philanthropic activities. For a short biography, scroll down through this site: http://www.ucc.sk.ca/programs/nbuilders/2004/index.html. Fred is a soft-spoken, humble man and rather than embarrass him further by dwelling on his many other accomplishments, I would like to concentrate on reporting those aspects of his life that might be of help to those practicing (or contemplating learning) neural therapy. Even decades ago, Fred was somewhat of a legend to Canadian prolotherapists, although most of us had never met him. He had been practicing prolotherapy since the 1960's and with the Christian Medical Society made annual trips to Honduras delivering prolotherapy and other medical care to the hinterlands. Fred was in his late 70's when I first met him; by chance we were sitting side by side on a flight from a medical meeting in Las Vegas. He had been intrigued by a lecture on neural therapy that I had delivered at the conference and he wanted to learn more. Not long after this conversation, he attended one of my two-day seminars and took to neural therapy like a duck to water. He was able to understand and use autonomic response testing almost immediately, even applying it to select the appropriate antibiotic for his patients with bladder infections. Fred was as excited by his new‐found skills as a wet‐behind‐the‐ears medical school graduate. He purchased a Tenscam and was soon identifying and treating interference fields in deep autonomic ganglia. He lives two thousand miles from me but we often have telephone chats during the middle of a practice day discussing interesting cases. In fact, here is a report of one of his recent cases: A 52 year old lady with Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome presented to my office in 1994 walking on her knees. It was rather pathetic to see her in that position. She was treated with prolotherapy injections with some improvement at first. Later this improvement was less noticeable although the patient felt more comfortable after these injections and persisted with the prolotherapy. She was still unable to walk, able only to transfer from wheelchair to bed and vice-versa. In September of 2007, in addition to the usual prolotherapy of the lower thoracic spine and sacroiliac joints, an episiotomy scar was injected with lidocaine. At her next visit in February 2008, she was walking and had started to dance. Further episiotomy scar injections have resulted in continued improvement and she is now walking reasonably long distances. (She had not walked in 20 years). She is overjoyed and is now for the first time able to dance with her sons. This is a remarkable case by any standard. (I personally have found interference fields in episiotomy scars to be rare). Perhaps as remarkable as the case itself however is the physician who cured this woman. He developed the skills to be able to help her at a stage of his life when many people have been retired for many years. I am sure that we can all share Dr Cenaiko's satisfaction in this case's outcome and be encouraged to know that the "fun" of learning and practicing medicine can last a life‐time. Sincerely, Robert F. Kidd, MD, CM |