Why peripheral neuropathy progresses, why so many neuropathy programs fail, what published research shows about oxygen, light, PEMF and circulation, and how our two tier approach in Edina works, from evaluation to enrollment.
14 min read. Serving Minneapolis, St. Paul, Edina and the greater Twin Cities.
If you are searching for peripheral neuropathy help in Minnesota, you have probably already lived the standard story. The burning, tingling, or numbness in your feet or hands started subtly and grew. Somewhere along the way you were told some version of “there is not much we can do,” handed a prescription that dulls the signal without touching the cause, and sent home to live with it.
We think you deserve a more complete conversation than that. This article explains what actually drives peripheral neuropathy, where it leads when nothing addresses the drivers, what published research shows about oxygen, light and circulation in nerve health, where that evidence is strong and where it is still emerging, and exactly how peripheral neuropathy care works at Aervita, including who it fits and who it does not. Every claim below is referenced, because we would rather show you the evidence than ask you to take our word for anything.
What is peripheral neuropathy, and why does it keep progressing?
Peripheral neuropathy is damage to the small nerves farthest from your spine, most often in the feet and hands. Those nerve fibers are among the most metabolically demanding tissues in your body, and they are fed by some of its smallest blood vessels.
That combination is the key to understanding the whole condition. Three forces, usually working together, drive most peripheral neuropathy.
Metabolic injury. Elevated blood sugar and insulin resistance damage nerves directly and injure the tiny vessels that feed them. This is why diabetes is the most common cause of peripheral neuropathy in America, and why nerve symptoms often show up years before a diabetes diagnosis, during the long runway of prediabetes.
Impaired blood flow. Nerves are fed by a delicate network of microscopic vessels. When those vessels narrow or fail, the nerve is slowly starved of oxygen and nutrients. Starved nerves misfire, which you feel as burning, tingling and electric shocks, and eventually they go quiet, which you feel as numbness.
Chronic inflammation. Inflammatory signaling around injured nerves amplifies pain and interferes with repair.
A failing energy supply. Underneath the other three sits a power problem. Nerve fibers are among the longest cells in your body, and maintaining and repairing them demands enormous energy, produced by mitochondria. Mitochondrial dysfunction is a recognized thread in nerve degeneration research, and it compounds everything above, a nerve that is starved of oxygen and fuel cannot power its own repair.
These drivers are progressive when nothing addresses them, which is why peripheral neuropathy tends to worsen year over year, and they are exactly the targets a serious plan has to aim at.
Not all peripheral neuropathy is the same, and that is why many programs fail
Here is something most peripheral neuropathy marketing never tells you. Peripheral neuropathy is a category, not a single condition, and the differences matter enormously for what should be done about it.
Diabetic and prediabetic neuropathy is the most common form, driven by the metabolic and vascular injury described above. Chemotherapy induced neuropathy follows a different injury pattern from treatment your oncologist may have already discussed with you. Compressive and mechanical neuropathies trace to physical pressure on a nerve, from the spine, from nerve root irritation, or from entrapment sites like the carpal tunnel, and these are squarely the territory chiropractic training centers on. Nutritional and toxin related neuropathies have their own causes, as do forms associated with autoimmune conditions. And a meaningful share of cases are labeled idiopathic, meaning the driver has not been identified, which is often an invitation to look harder rather than a dead end.
A program built for one kind of peripheral neuropathy, sold identically to every kind, is exactly why so many peripheral neuropathy programs disappoint. The same sessions, the same package, the same promises, regardless of what is actually driving your symptoms.
This is where our training matters. As doctors of chiropractic, the nervous system is the center of our education and our examination skills, and a real neurological and circulation assessment is the first thing that happens here, not a formality on the way to a sales pitch. Personalization is not a buzzword at Aervita. It is the difference between a protocol matched to your presentation and a package matched to your credit card.
Where untreated peripheral neuropathy leads, and the part of this story western medicine already accepts
This is the section we most want you to read, because it reframes the entire conversation.
For diabetic neuropathy especially, the long term trajectory is well documented. Numbness progresses to loss of protective sensation. A foot that cannot feel injury gets injured without anyone noticing. Small wounds become ulcers, because the same impaired circulation that starved the nerves also starves healing. Ulcers become infections. At the severe end of that road sit gangrene and amputation, and diabetic foot ulcers precede the great majority of diabetes related amputations.
Now here is the part almost nobody tells peripheral neuropathy patients. When that trajectory reaches its catastrophic end, hospital medicine reaches for hyperbaric oxygen. HBOT is established, society approved, insurance covered treatment for refractory diabetic foot ulcers, for gas gangrene, for necrotizing soft tissue infections, and for compromised grafts and flaps.[1,2,3] A systematic review of randomized trials found that adding hyperbaric oxygen to standard wound care improved the proportion of diabetic ulcers healed.[4] Reviews of its wound healing mechanisms describe a unique ability to ameliorate tissue hypoxia, reduce pathologic inflammation, and mitigate ischemia reperfusion injury.[5,6]
Read that trajectory again and notice when the oxygen shows up. After the wound. After the infection. After the tissue is already dying. The established medical system deploys the most powerful oxygenation tool in medicine at the end of the circulation story, and almost never earlier.
We think about that ordering differently. To be plain and honest, no one can promise that working on circulation, oxygenation and metabolic drivers earlier prevents any particular outcome, and no trial has proven early hyperbaric use prevents amputation. What we can say is this. The drivers of peripheral neuropathy are the same drivers that lead to the severe end, they are measurable, and they respond to being worked on. We would rather help you address them while your nerves are still complaining than wait until the conversation is about wound care.
What does research show about oxygen and peripheral neuropathy?
Hyperbaric oxygen has well documented mechanisms that map directly onto the drivers above, and we will be precise about what is established and what is emerging. Our hyperbaric oxygen page and our full hyperbaric education article go deeper on how the chambers work.
The established mechanisms. Breathing oxygen under pressure dissolves substantially more oxygen directly into your plasma, reaching tissue that impaired circulation struggles to feed.[6] No other noninvasive modality raises tissue oxygen delivery the way pressurized oxygen does, and angiogenesis, the growth of new small blood vessels in poorly perfused tissue, is among its best documented effects, along with a measurable shift in inflammatory signaling toward repair.[5,6,7] Hyperbaric protocols also mobilize the body’s own repair cells.
In human research, circulating stem cells doubled after a single two hour session at 2.0 atmospheres and increased eightfold over a course of twenty sessions.[8] Laboratory research also suggests hyperbaric protocols can stimulate mitochondrial biogenesis, the creation of new cellular power plants, which speaks directly to the energy problem described above.[18]
The emerging evidence on nerves specifically. Nerve recovery is not yet an FDA cleared indication for hyperbaric oxygen, and we say that plainly. What exists is a body of research, much of it in animal models, that researchers find genuinely promising.
A published review of peripheral nerve repair and hyperbaric oxygen concluded that although nerve injuries are not yet an approved indication, animal and clinical examples show benefits for neurological recovery, and the known actions of hyperbaric oxygen meet many of the requirements for axon regeneration.[9] In animal studies of neuropathic pain, hyperbaric oxygen reduced pain behaviors and normalized TNF alpha, a key inflammatory messenger, back toward healthy levels.[10] Reviews of that literature describe repeated sessions producing longer lasting relief than single sessions, along with reduced activation of the glial cells that amplify nerve pain.[11,12] Animal findings do not guarantee human results, and we will never pretend they do. They are the reason serious researchers keep pulling this thread.
A note on pressure, because it separates providers. Nearly all of this research was conducted at 2.0 atmospheres and above, in hard chambers, which is what our clinic runs. Many neuropathy focused clinics operate 1.3 atmosphere soft chambers while citing higher pressure research, and most peripheral neuropathy clinics have no hyperbaric capability at all. We wrote a full article on that distinction, and it is worth reading before you spend money anywhere, including with us.
What about light therapy and PEMF for peripheral neuropathy? The evidence, including the mixed parts
Our peripheral neuropathy protocol pairs hyperbaric oxygen with photobiomodulation, commonly called red light therapy, and PEMF. Here too, the honest picture, including the studies that did not go the way enthusiasts hoped, because presenting evidence means presenting all of it.
Light therapy has real human trials behind it, and its mechanism is mitochondrial at its core. Red and near infrared wavelengths are absorbed by cytochrome c oxidase inside the mitochondria, supporting cellular energy production, which is a large part of why light keeps showing up in nerve research, energy hungry tissue responding to an energy targeted therapy.
A 2019 systematic review screened the human trials of low level laser therapy for painful diabetic peripheral neuropathy and concluded the evidence shows a positive effect on pain control.[13] A 2023 randomized controlled trial using red and near infrared wavelengths together reported significant improvements in neuropathy symptom and sensation scores compared with conventional care alone, with no side effects reported.[14] A 2023 systematic review found photobiomodulation effective for neuropathic pain, nerve conduction and plantar pressure in diabetic peripheral neuropathy.[15] That is human evidence, on the exact symptoms that bring most people to us.
How we deliver it matters too. Most clinics approach neuropathy with small pads or panels aimed at the feet for a few minutes. Our ARRC LED system is a whole body bed delivering six wavelengths of light simultaneously, green, red and near infrared, so a single session covers the feet and hands where symptoms live and the entire circulatory system that feeds them at the same time. It is one more place where the equipment gap between a neuropathy package and a real integrative clinic shows. Details are on our red light therapy page.
PEMF has a longer medical pedigree than most people realize. Devices using pulsed electromagnetic fields have been FDA approved since 1979 for stimulating bone healing in fractures that fail to heal on their own. That approval covers dedicated bone growth stimulators, not wellness systems like ours, but it tells you something real, electromagnetic stimulation of tissue repair is established medicine in at least one domain of the body.
For nerves specifically, PEMF research is genuinely mixed, and we will show you both sides. A randomized controlled trial of low frequency PEMF in diabetic polyneuropathy reported significant reductions in pain and improvements in nerve conduction velocity.[16] A larger multicenter randomized trial found no significant difference from sham on its primary pain measures, but it contained a finding worth knowing about.
Among patients who underwent serial skin biopsies, 29 percent of the PEMF group showed measurable regrowth of nerve fiber density in the lower leg, while none of the sham group did, and those increases correlated with decreases in pain.[17] Researchers describe PEMF for peripheral neuropathy as promising and unsettled, and so do we. We include it in the protocol for circulation and recovery support alongside the better established modalities, and we will not claim more for it than the literature does.
What we can tell you plainly is what happens in the session. Our PEMF sessions run on a high powered Pulse system, strong enough that you can feel and see your muscles gently contracting in rhythm with each pulse. Those contractions matter, because muscle contraction is the body’s own pump for blood and lymph, the same reason walking is good for circulation, and sluggish fluid movement is part of the starved tissue story in peripheral neuropathy. Where a small consumer PEMF mat hums quietly, a session on our system is a workout your circulation gets while you lie still. Details are on our PEMF page.
The peripheral neuropathy stack nobody else puts together
Walk into most peripheral neuropathy clinics in Minnesota and you will find light therapy or electrical stimulation, sold as a package. A smaller number add a 1.3 atmosphere soft chamber. Hardly any run medical grade hyperbaric oxygen in hard chambers at the pressures the research actually used. And to our knowledge, no one else in the metro combines medical grade hyperbaric oxygen, photobiomodulation and PEMF with a doctor led metabolic program in one building, under one plan, with IBUM certified technicians and a written safety program behind every session.
That combination is deliberate. The research above describes three different mechanisms aimed at the same three drivers. Oxygen delivery and new vessel growth for the starved circulation. Whole body multi wavelength light for the nerve tissue and pain signaling, with human trials behind it. High powered PEMF that recruits your own muscle pump for circulation and recovery support. All three converge on the same cellular target as well, the mitochondria that power nerve maintenance and repair. And underneath all of it, the driver that determines everything else.
The two peripheral neuropathy paths at Aervita
Everything starts the same way, with an $84 evaluation. A licensed Aervita practitioner examines you, including the neurological and circulation assessment your feet and hands deserve, reviews your history and current care, and gives you a straight answer about whether our approach fits your situation. Sometimes the answer is no, and we will tell you that too, along with where to go instead.
From there, two paths.
The Neuropathy Protocol. One of our Rapid Recovery Protocols, this technology driven, eight week protocol pairs medical grade hyperbaric oxygen in our hard chambers with photobiomodulation and PEMF on a defined schedule, matched to your presentation at your evaluation, delivered by IBUM certified technicians under our written safety program, with reassessment checkpoints built in. Details and current pricing are on our Neuropathy Protocol page.
The Complete Neuropathy Program. For most people with peripheral neuropathy, the technology is only half the answer, because the most established fact in all of neuropathy science is that metabolic health drives nerve health.
Our complete six month program pairs the protocol with our doctor led, health coach supported cardiometabolic care, addressing blood sugar, insulin resistance, nutrition, sleep and the daily foundations that determine whether nerves are healing in a favorable environment or an unfavorable one, with lab work to measure it. This is the version we built for people who want the root causes worked, not just the symptoms addressed, and it is what separates a program from a package of sessions. Details are on our Complete Neuropathy Program page.
Which path fits, or whether either does, comes out of your evaluation, not a sales script.
Who this fits, and who it does not
Our peripheral neuropathy care fits people with neuropathy symptoms, burning, tingling, numbness, balance changes, especially where metabolic factors or circulation are in the picture, who want to work the underlying drivers alongside their existing medical care. A word on where we sit.
We are doctors of chiropractic, and in Minnesota that training centers on the nervous system, the spine and the joints, and the structural, biomechanical and neurological function that flows from them. Compressive and mechanical neuropathies sit squarely inside that scope. For metabolic forms of neuropathy, our role is supportive and adjunctive, working the circulation, inflammation and lifestyle drivers while the physicians managing the underlying condition remain exactly where they belong, in charge of it. We do not diagnose or treat diabetes or any other underlying medical disease, and we will never ask you to leave the care of the doctor who does.
It is not the right first stop for everyone. Rapidly progressing weakness, symptoms after an acute injury, open foot wounds, or signs of infection belong with a physician promptly, and if that is your situation we will help you get there. Established hospital indications like refractory foot ulcers belong in hospital hyperbaric programs, and part of knowing this field is knowing which cases are theirs. We coordinate with the providers already managing your care, and our patients’ physicians receive notes on what we deliver and observe.
Getting started with peripheral neuropathy care
Book your $84 evaluation with an Aervita practitioner online or call or text 952 213 6386. We are in Edina, minutes from Minneapolis and St. Paul, serving the entire Twin Cities metro.
Want the deeper education first? Our free Dive to Thrive guide covers the science of hyperbaric oxygen in seven chapters, including a reference list of published research protocols with the session counts and pressures each study used. Download it at aervita.com/hbot-guide. If peripheral neuropathy specifically is your question, our free Fix the Feels guide is on the Complete Neuropathy Program page.
Peripheral neuropathy FAQ
Can peripheral neuropathy be reversed?
Here is the honest answer. No one can promise nerve reversal, and we would encourage real caution with any clinic that does. What the research describes is more specific. Nerves that are starved and inflamed but still alive can function better when circulation, oxygenation and the metabolic environment improve, one large PEMF trial even documented regrowth of nerve fiber density in a subset of patients, and the earlier the drivers are addressed, the more there is to work with. Your evaluation is where we assess what is realistic for your situation, and we will tell you what we actually think.
How is this different from other peripheral neuropathy clinics?
Four ways worth checking anywhere you go. Pressure, most clinics have no hyperbaric at all and few of the rest go beyond 1.3 atmosphere soft chambers, while our protocol runs medical grade hard chambers at the pressures the research used. Examination, every patient here is evaluated by a licensed practitioner before anything is sold, and peripheral neuropathy comes in many forms that deserve different plans. Root causes, our Complete Neuropathy Program addresses the metabolic drivers with doctor led care and health coaching. And honesty, we cite the mixed studies alongside the promising ones, because you deserve the whole picture.
How many sessions does the Neuropathy Protocol involve?
The Neuropathy Protocol runs eight weeks with 40 hours of hyperbaric oxygen, 16 red light sessions and 16 PEMF sessions, about five chamber hours plus two of each supporting session per week, with reassessment checkpoints along the way. Whether that schedule fits your presentation comes out of your evaluation. The published research described above generally involved repeated sessions over weeks, and our free guide includes a reference list of what studies used.
Does insurance cover peripheral neuropathy care at Aervita?
We keep pricing simple and published rather than billing health insurance directly, so there are no surprise bills. Some patients use HSA or FSA funds, and your plan administrator is the authority on eligibility. Medications and physician care you receive elsewhere remain with your existing coverage.
Can I do this while taking my peripheral neuropathy medications?
Yes, and you should not stop any medication without your prescriber. Medications like gabapentin have a legitimate role in managing the signal. Our care aims at the drivers, alongside your existing treatment, and we coordinate with your other providers.
Is a chiropractor the right provider for peripheral neuropathy?
It depends on the kind. Compressive and mechanical neuropathies, where a nerve is under pressure from the spine, a nerve root or an entrapment site, are squarely within chiropractic training and scope in Minnesota. For metabolic and other medical forms of peripheral neuropathy, we provide supportive, adjunctive care aimed at circulation, inflammation and lifestyle drivers while your physician manages the underlying condition, and the evaluation is where we sort out which situation you are in and say so plainly.
Where can I find peripheral neuropathy help near Minneapolis?
Aervita Integrative Medicine + Hyperbarics is in Edina at 4820 W 77th Street, Suite 150, about 15 minutes from downtown Minneapolis. Start with the $84 evaluation, or call or text 952 213 6386 with questions.
Written by the team at Aervita Integrative Medicine + Hyperbarics, a chiropractic led integrative clinic in Edina, Minnesota. This article is education, not medical advice, and describes published research rather than promised outcomes. Nerve recovery is not an FDA cleared indication for hyperbaric oxygen. Our services are provided following examination by a licensed practitioner, as an adjunct to your existing care and not a replacement for it, and we do not diagnose or treat diabetes or other underlying medical conditions.
References
- Bhutani S, Vishwanath G. Hyperbaric oxygen and wound healing. Indian Journal of Plastic Surgery. 2012;45(2):316 to 324.
- Moon RE, ed. Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy Indications. 14th ed. Undersea and Hyperbaric Medical Society; 2019.
- Gill AL, Bell CNA. Hyperbaric oxygen: its uses, mechanisms of action and outcomes. QJM. 2004;97(7):385 to 395.
- Elraiyah T, Tsapas A, Prutsky G, et al. A systematic review and meta analysis of adjunctive therapies in diabetic foot ulcers. Journal of Vascular Surgery. 2016;63(2 Suppl):46S to 58S.
- Huang ET, Mansouri J, Murad MH, et al. A clinical practice guideline for the use of hyperbaric oxygen therapy in the treatment of diabetic foot ulcers. Undersea and Hyperbaric Medicine. 2015;42(3):205 to 247.
- Thom SR. Hyperbaric oxygen: its mechanisms and efficacy. Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery. 2011;127 Suppl 1:131S to 141S.
- Thom SR. Oxidative stress is fundamental to hyperbaric oxygen therapy. Journal of Applied Physiology. 2009;106(3):988 to 995.
- Thom SR, Bhopale VM, Velazquez OC, et al. Stem cell mobilization by hyperbaric oxygen. American Journal of Physiology, Heart and Circulatory Physiology. 2006;290(4):H1378 to H1386.
- Sanchez EC. Hyperbaric oxygenation in peripheral nerve repair and regeneration. Neurological Research. 2007;29(2):184 to 198. doi:10.1179/016164107X181824
- Li F, Fang L, Huang S, et al. Hyperbaric oxygenation therapy alleviates chronic constrictive injury induced neuropathic pain and reduces TNF alpha production. Anesthesia and Analgesia. 2011;113(3):626 to 633.
- Sutherland AM, Clarke HA, Katz J, Katznelson R. Hyperbaric oxygen therapy: a new treatment for chronic pain? Pain Practice. 2016;16(5):620 to 628.
- Zhao BS, Meng LX, Ding YY, Cao YY. Hyperbaric oxygen treatment produces an antinociceptive response phase and inhibits astrocyte activation in neuropathic pain model rats. Journal of Molecular Neuroscience. 2014;53(2):251 to 261.
- Anju M, Ummer VS, Maiya AG, Hande M. Low level laser therapy for the patients with painful diabetic peripheral neuropathy, a systematic review. Diabetes and Metabolic Syndrome. 2019;13(4):2667 to 2670. PubMed 31405692
- Ebadi SA, Tabeie F, Tavakoli S, Khalili S. Effects of photobiomodulation with two wavelengths of 630 and 810 nm on diabetic neuropathy. Journal of Lasers in Medical Sciences. 2023;14:e22. doi:10.34172/jlms.2023.22
- Korada H, Arora E, et al. Effectiveness of photobiomodulation therapy on neuropathic pain, nerve conduction and plantar pressure distribution in diabetic peripheral neuropathy, a systematic review. Current Diabetes Reviews. 2023;19(9). PubMed 37622461
- Graak V, Chaudhary S, Bal BS, Sandhu JS. Evaluation of the efficacy of pulsed electromagnetic field in the management of patients with diabetic polyneuropathy. International Journal of Diabetes in Developing Countries. 2009;29(2):56 to 61.
- Weintraub MI, Herrmann DN, Smith AG, Backonja MM, Cole SP. Pulsed electromagnetic fields to reduce diabetic neuropathic pain and stimulate neuronal repair, a randomized controlled trial. Archives of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation. 2009;90(7):1102 to 1109.
- Schottlender N, Gottfried I, Ashery U. Hyperbaric oxygen treatment: effects on mitochondrial function and oxidative stress. Biomolecules. 2021;11(12):1827.
