Trauma
Actual trauma is one of the major causes of neuropathy and chronic pain, and results when the myelin sheath is cut or etched away by chemotherapeutic agents, environmental toxins, poorly performed injections, or from amputations and accidents. Traumatic causes must obviously be mitigated by removing the cause as in drug therapy, chemotherapy, physical entrapment, and environmental poisons. Permanent tissue damage may be beyond the scope of any therapy.

Diabetes
Diabetes can also trigger neuropathy and chronic pain by affecting the levels of glucose and/or insulin in the blood stream. When this occurs, minerals are driven out of the fluid in the synaptic junction thereby reducing conductivity and impairing nerve impulse transmission. Nerve signals propagate from the cell body unindirectionally over the synapse, first along the axon and then across the synapse to the next nerve or muscle cell. The synaptic cleft, the gap between presynaptic terminal and postsynaptic terminal, is due to the difference in electrical polarity between the sending axon and the receiving dendrite.

As a result of hypoxic cellular atrophy, nerve signals must now try to jump a larger gap through a less conductive medium. This loss of nerve transmission is first perceived as tingling, then burning, and finally as pain when the demineralization and gap widening process progresses. The initial perception associated with atrophied nerves and enlarged synaptic gas is tingling as some of the normal signals are misdirected to nearby nerves.

As the condition progresses, it happens more and more until more signals are misdirected than properly propagated, and the resulting sensation is pain. Finally, after the nerve signals can no longer be transmitted at all, numbness is the primary complaint. This secondary effect of neuropathy and chronic pain reduces the strength of the calf muscles which, in turn, reduces the blood flow to the lower extremities. This condition often results in poor tissue perfusion, insecure gait, balance problems, and other mobility issues.

Chemotherapeutic Agents
Prescribed for cancer precisely because they inhibit fast growing or fast acting cells, chemotherapeutic agents cause neuropathy and chronic pain in about one third of the patients to whom they are administered. Through nerve cells do not reproduce themselves like cancer cells do, they do change electrical states quickly and are thus particularly susceptible to the effects of chemotherapeutic drugs. The fast acting nerves are mistaken for fast growing neo-plasms. Chemotherapy has the effect of de-materializing the synaptic fluid, damaging the integrity of the nerve cells, and making it difficult to the ionization of the cell membranes to propagate the signal along the surface of the nerve. When ionization takes place, the outer membrane of the nerve cells change from positive to negative in a wave like motion taking a positive charge from one end of the nerve all the way to the other end. Chemotherapy is designed to interrupt the ability of the cell to control the permeability of the outer membrane and this process is ekectrically modulated. This electrical interruption is misapplied when the agent is in contact with the myelin sheath of a healthy, active nerve cell and causes the nerve cell to "short out" and inhibit the necessary different potentials in the nodes of the myelin sheath.

Cardiovascular Disease
By reducing the amount of blood that can perfuse the tissue of the lower legs and feet, cardiovascular disease can also cause neuropathy and chronic pain. When the arteries and veins become blocked, blood flow is reduced. One of the first symptoms is intermittent claudication which results in a reduction in the distance a patient can walk before the onset of localized leg pain due to reduced oxygen availability. Therefor, the muscle cells switch from aerobic metabolism to using anaerobic metabolism thereby creating greater than normal amounts of lactic acid, the by-product of muscle metabolism. The increased lactic acid collects in the cells causing inflammation and pain.

Lumbar Trauma
Trauma to the lumbar area of the back can be another cause of neuropathy and chronic pain. This trauma can be as slight as lifting a bag of groceries out of the trunk, picking up a grandchild, or bending down to tie a shoe. Our studies show a 60% correlation between repeated injuries to the lower back and subsequent development of neuropathy and chronic pain symptoms. During the acute phase of localized trauma, inflammation develops reducing arterial and venous blood to the lumbar synaptic junctions. Nerves in the region temporarily shrink die to the reduction in activity. Since the body tends to conserve resources, the affected nerves begin to atrophy, the synaptic junction gap begins to widen, and synaptic minerals leech away making signal transmission more difficult.

Signals of normal strength can no longer cross synapses that are damaged by the reduction in blood flow. The loss of signals across the synapses compounds the process of deterioration. Muscle atrophy and a host of other problems follow. We have found that a signal delivered at 7.83 cycles per second (the body's natuaral electromagnetic resonant frequency) and at an amplitude approximately 10 times that originally required will cross these enlarged synapses, repolarize them.

High Blood Pressure Medication
High blood pressure medication not only lowers blood pressure, it also reduces the ability of the arterial blood to refill the veins. This vacancy results as the venous muscle pumps the blood back to the heart. When this occurs the blood has a tendency to pool in the lower extremities; the nerves and synaptic junctions do not have enough necessary nutrition and oxygen to maintain their health resulting in nerve cell atrophy, loss of mineralization, and conductivity of the synaptic junctions as explained above.

Pshychoactive Drug Therapy
These drugs, used to reduce anxiety or seizures, have the effect of reducing the intensity/frequency of all nerve signals. This, too, can result in loss of motor and sensory nerve function. These conditions can result in impaired mobility and balance issues due to the loss of muscle strength. Whenever overactive nerves that might be causing psychological problems are depressed, the depress borderline poorly functioning nerves as well.