I see a lot of patients in my office with leg and foot pains, numbness, or cramping commonly referred to as peripheral neuropathy.
Most of these patients are already on the peripheral neuropathy cocktail of drugs that just cover up the symptoms while the under lying issues continue to drive the patient closer to the wheelchair. My job is to find out what is driving these conditions to not only keep patients from the wheel chair but put joy and vitality back into their lives. Here is a sample list of what I look for and what I do to address it…
- The first thing I check is the patient’s oxygen level with a pulse ox bilaterally. The body needs oxygen like a plant needs sunlight. When a patient’s pulse ox falls below 97, I’ll put them on my live 2 Oxygen unit that drives O2 into the tissues. This alone can make a dramatic difference for the patients if it’s been low for a long time.
- I definitely check the blood sugar levels with a standard A1C and fasting glucose test. If you’ve had this test done with in the last 6 months, I’ll ask for your lab records. I put these patients on a good detox program and put them on a paleo diet.
- Check your balance with several neurological test. I’m checking the cerebellar part of your brain here. The left side of your cerebellum connects to the right side of the rest of your brain. This is important because I try to rebuild the nerve pathway between the brain and foot by doing different exercises in the office. We use home and in office e-stim rebuilders to wake up these nerve pathways.
- I check the outside temperature of the patients head with a laser temperature gauge. It’s usually in the mid 90’s. The rest of the body should be within 2 degrees of that face temperature. If I see a reading of say 85, I know that part of the body and below is not getting proper blood flow which means automatically there isn’t enough oxygen or glucose getting to the nervous tissue. We do in office and home low level light therapy to help promote new blood vessel growth and help dilate the blood vessels you already have.
- I check the patient’s ability to feel different sensations in their legs and compare it to the rest of their body. If they can’t feel their feet the same as their hands and then compare the feet to each other. We’ll put a lot of our peripheral neuropathy patients on PEMF which stands for pulsed electromagnetic field. This awesome machine basically helps electrically recharge all the cells in the body much like charging a car battery.
If you think you would like to see if you’re a candidate for this type of specialized care, check us out online or call for a complimentary evaluation.