Peripheral neuropathy affects millions of people, causing numbness, tingling, weakness, burning pain, and balance problems. However, as Dr. Joseph Schneider explains in this episode, effective treatment requires looking beyond the peripheral nerves themselves. By combining functional neurology, autonomic nervous system rehabilitation, functional medicine, advanced stimulation technologies, and personalized diagnostics, Hope Brain and Body Recovery Center works to restore nervous system function while improving patients’ overall quality of life.
Announcement: A major breakthrough in neurological care has arrived. In this episode of the POTS Podcast, Dr. Joseph Schneider introduces the Spryson NeuroAI system, a cutting-edge technology designed to transform how brain conditions are diagnosed and treated. After 18 months of development and integration, this advanced platform combines AI-driven diagnostics, multimodal therapies, and regenerative medicine to deliver highly personalized treatment plans for patients with complex neurological conditions.
Understanding Peripheral Neuropathy
Peripheral neuropathy affects three major components of the nervous system:
- Sensory nerves
- Motor nerves
- Autonomic nerves
These nerves control:
- Muscle movement
- Sensation
- Blood flow
- Sweat gland function
- Pain perception
- Organ regulation
When these nerves become damaged, patients may experience symptoms that extend far beyond numbness or tingling.
According to Dr. Schneider, successful treatment requires understanding how the peripheral nervous system interacts with the brain and spinal cord.
Why the Autonomic Nervous System Matters
The autonomic nervous system controls many of the body’s automatic functions, including:
- Heart rate
- Blood pressure
- Digestion
- Temperature regulation
- Oxygen delivery
Conditions such as Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia Syndrome (POTS) and dysautonomia occur when these automatic systems lose proper regulation.
Rather than simply treating symptoms, rehabilitation focuses on helping the nervous system relearn normal autonomic control through personalized neurological therapies.
Peripheral Neuropathy Is Affecting Younger Patients
Peripheral neuropathy is no longer limited to older adults.
Dr. Schneider discusses the growing number of younger patients developing nerve dysfunction due to:
- Diabetes
- Metabolic syndrome
- Chronic inflammation
- Food sensitivities
- Autoimmune conditions
- Gut dysfunction
Identifying these underlying contributors is an essential part of creating an effective treatment plan.
Advanced Technologies Supporting Nerve Recovery
Hope Brain and Body Recovery Center utilizes several advanced technologies designed to stimulate nerve repair and improve nervous system communication.
Stimpod Therapy
The Stimpod system delivers pulsed radiofrequency stimulation to targeted nerves, including:
- Median nerve
- Tibial nerve
- Peroneal nerve
- Vagus nerve
Unlike traditional electrical stimulation, the goal is to support healthier nerve signaling and mitochondrial function while encouraging neurological recovery.
Home-use options also allow patients to continue therapy between office visits.
Laser Therapy
Several laser systems are incorporated into treatment protocols, including technologies designed to improve:
- Circulation
- Cellular energy
- Oxygen delivery
- Pain management
- Tissue healing
Different wavelengths and treatment protocols allow therapy to be customized for each patient’s needs while supporting both in-office and home-based rehabilitation.
Acupuncture Without Needles
Modern stimulation technologies can also activate traditional acupuncture points without the use of needles.
By combining:
- Electrical stimulation
- Laser therapy
- Acupuncture point activation
clinicians can create comprehensive treatment plans that support nervous system regulation from multiple directions.
A Personalized Rehabilitation Strategy
Every patient receives individualized testing to establish a neurological baseline.
These evaluations may include assessments of:
- Brain function
- Peripheral nerve health
- Autonomic nervous system performance
- Balance
- Vestibular function
- Metabolic health
- Inflammatory markers
Treatment plans are then customized based on each patient’s unique neurological profile.
Setting Realistic Recovery Goals
One of the most encouraging messages throughout the episode is that meaningful improvement is possible.
While complete recovery cannot always be guaranteed, Dr. Schneider explains that many patients achieve significant improvements in:
- Cognitive function
- Balance
- Sensation
- Energy
- Pain levels
- Daily activities
The focus is on restoring function rather than simply managing symptoms.
Recovery After Stroke and Brain Injury
Peripheral neuropathy frequently accompanies stroke and traumatic brain injury.
Dr. Schneider shares how neurological damage can produce persistent numbness, pain, and altered sensation long after the initial injury.
By addressing both the brain and peripheral nerves together, rehabilitation aims to strengthen communication throughout the nervous system while supporting long-term recovery.
A Multidisciplinary Approach
Hope Brain and Body Recovery Center combines expertise from multiple disciplines, including:
- Functional Neurology
- Chiropractic Care
- Clinical Nutrition
- Functional Medicine
- Acupuncture
- Regenerative Medicine
This collaborative model allows clinicians to address the neurological, metabolic, inflammatory, and structural factors contributing to peripheral neuropathy and autonomic dysfunction.
Investing in Long-Term Health
Dr. Schneider emphasizes that medications often help control symptoms but may not restore nervous system function.
The center’s philosophy focuses on helping patients rebuild strength, improve resilience, and regain independence through evidence-informed rehabilitation technologies and personalized care.
The goal is simple:
Help patients enjoy a healthier, more active life for years to come.
Start Your Recovery Journey
If you’re experiencing:
- Peripheral neuropathy
- POTS
- Dysautonomia
- Chronic numbness
- Burning nerve pain
- Balance problems
- Brain injury
Hope Brain and Body Recovery Center offers comprehensive neurological evaluations and personalized rehabilitation programs designed to restore nervous system function and improve quality of life.
👉 Visit https://hopebraincenter.com/ to schedule your consultation.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)
What is peripheral neuropathy?
Peripheral neuropathy is damage or dysfunction affecting the sensory, motor, or autonomic nerves, often causing numbness, tingling, weakness, pain, and balance problems.
How is POTS related to peripheral neuropathy?
Many patients with POTS experience autonomic nerve dysfunction that affects blood pressure, heart rate, circulation, and overall nervous system regulation. Some individuals also develop small fiber neuropathy.
What causes peripheral neuropathy?
Common causes include diabetes, metabolic syndrome, chronic inflammation, autoimmune disorders, nutritional deficiencies, infections, toxins, and traumatic injuries.
What is Stimpod therapy?
Stimpod is a pulsed radiofrequency stimulation device designed to support nerve health by improving nerve signaling and promoting healthier neurological function.
Can laser therapy help nerve pain?
Laser therapy may support circulation, reduce inflammation, improve tissue healing, and complement comprehensive rehabilitation programs for peripheral neuropathy and chronic pain.
Why is the vagus nerve important?
The vagus nerve plays a major role in regulating the autonomic nervous system, influencing heart rate, digestion, inflammation, and stress responses.
Why does Hope Brain and Body Recovery Center combine functional medicine with neurology?
Neurological symptoms often have underlying metabolic and inflammatory contributors. Combining functional medicine with neurological rehabilitation provides a more complete understanding of each patient’s condition.
Can younger adults develop peripheral neuropathy?
Yes. Peripheral neuropathy is becoming increasingly common in younger individuals due to metabolic disorders, chronic inflammation, autoimmune conditions, and lifestyle-related health factors.
What makes this rehabilitation approach different?
The center combines advanced neurological diagnostics, functional medicine, brain rehabilitation, nerve stimulation technologies, laser therapy, and multidisciplinary care into one personalized treatment program.
How do I schedule a consultation?
👉 Visit https://hopebraincenter.com/ to learn more or schedule a consultation. You can find out more information at Spryson.
Transcript
Dr. Joseph Schneider (00:02): Hello, Dr. Joe Schneider here with MyPods podcast. Okay, so this one’s on peripheral neuropathy. And so when patients come in to our office and they get evaluated for brain injury, you also want to evaluate them for peripheral neuropathy. We do pseudomotor testing on patients when we do our vital scans, which are for looking at the autonomic nervous system, but peripheral neuropathy, peripheral nerves go to your muscles. Their sensory. Peripheral nerves are sensory or motor, or they could be autonomic, which we have different nerves that go to our blood vessels or capillaries to monitor and control blood flow. Now, we also have peripheral nerves that are pain nerves signal pain in the area, pain and temperature nerves, nerves that will assess temperature.
Dr. Joseph Schneider (01:14): We also have other autonomic nerves that actually go out to the periphery, and they regulate your hairs on your arm, your pylorector systems at the orange sweat glands, and regulate sweat glands. So, you know, we need to understand that the peripheral nervous system is very complicated. Just is. And what’s even more complicated is the central nervous system that relies on your peripheral nerves for your brain and your body interconnections to function properly. So dealing in this realm since I graduated from chiropractic college, so my background is in control system technology. I was an engineer, and I did design simulators for power plants so that we could teach operators how to run a power plant on the simulator, rather than messing up the plant for the learning. So it was quite a great experience for me.
Dr. Joseph Schneider (02:29): But I learned about control systems, I learned about process control and so forth. So your body is a master control system and a process control. It controls all the processes that help you live your life and live a good life and quality life. Right. And a quantity life. So, I mean, that’s kind of where we’re going with contemporary neuroscience, is to understand the interconnections of function within the body, not only with musculoskeletal function, but with digestive function, immune function, okay, behavioral pathways, and what are the inner reactions and responses to those which are quite complex and complicated. Also things like memory and processing language and processing math calculations or geometric shapes.
Dr. Joseph Schneider (03:32): So the brain is just a marvelous organism, and when it becomes injured and you have not only central issues, the brain itself, the subcortex in the brain stem, but you also have spinal nerve problems and also peripheral nerve problems that go along with it. Now, like, so I started off working with trauma cases, concussion, traumatic brain injury, closed head, what they call closed head injury, where you haven’t had your break in your skull, and then Subsequently, because I was treating traumatic brain injury. I had traumatic brain injury 2004, and it was quite severe brain injury. And I was able to rehab myself, but that’s when I started to have dysautonomia. So why do I call it my PODS podcast? Because I don’t know, I’ve gone through it myself. I gone through pots, Postural orthostatic Tachycardia syndrome.
Dr. Joseph Schneider (04:49): We used to call it pots or postural orthostatic tension syndrome. Now, you can’t separate heart rate, blood pressure, and oxygen utilization within the autonomic nervous system. So most patients will notice that they have either high heart rate when they exercise and maybe a drop in blood pressure or maybe too much of an increase in blood pressure. So the fine tuning of your heart rate, your BP and your oxygen levels should be together. They should operate together. And once that lost, then you have to strengthen the system or relearn how to normally control your heart rate, your blood pressure, and your oxygen systems. Okay, so when we started the HOPE Brain and Body Recovery center, we came up with the term brain specific rehabilitation.
Dr. Joseph Schneider (05:52): Now, brain specific rehabilitation is specific to the patient, and it is a very difficult process where every individual and every injury is totally different. So we develop what we call the baseline. Now, the baseline is what we get from our diagnostics to understand the weaknesses of the brain, the weaknesses of the peripheral nervous system, and the other one is the weakness in your metabolism fueling the whole system so that it runs right. So some of the things about metabolism that will bring up would be chronic fatigue syndrome, mast cell activation systems, where we’re looking at inflammatory processes within the body that cause the mast cells to be overreactive and your histamine to go off.
Dr. Joseph Schneider (06:48): And, you know, histamine is a normal chemical in the body, but when it’s out of response and it’s too high, then we know that we have inflammatory systems within the body and the immune system that just aren’t functioning right either. So if you want to go through it, you have to go through it the right way. And the right way is the way that we developed the HOPE Brain and Body Recovery center to make sure that we understand the patient, we understand their underlying injury, and then we can come up with better treatment plan so that we can fully resolve the issues. Now, we’re not claiming that we bring back people 100%, but with the major portion of the comorbidities, we can actually get a patient functioning better.
Dr. Joseph Schneider (07:45): And, you know, we think that 60 to 70% is a good goal. We Hope for better, and we usually achieve better, but we want to get at least 60 to 70% improvement in person’s functionality. Now, you know, when we get a person in, we’ll understand the baseline and then there can be cognitive issues, auditory processing issues, things that you wouldn’t normally look at. But we’re, we’re starting to look at that in a more definitive way and a more specific way so that we can add to the patient’s response and get them better. Now one of the things that we find that when people go into after a brain injury, they go into a restaurant or they go to a concert, or they go to an athletic event and the noise level usually gets really high.
Dr. Joseph Schneider (08:49): And that’s like, keep your body going, get motivated, have fun, watch, you know, your grandkids, your kids, or just participate in sports. The auditory system can be so over responsive that it can cause you to become fatigued, cause headaches, dizziness, motion sickness, nausea, things along those lines. It’s like the comorbidities and all the different processes that are affected are amazingly complicated. So that’s the kind of system we have that we work with in complicated systems. And most patients do better than the 60, 70%. Some patients will come in at 60, 70%. But the whole thing is that when we get a patient, usually their life impact is huge. They can’t go anywhere, they can’t do things that they normally want to do.
Dr. Joseph Schneider (09:56): They have anxiety, they may be depressed, so they have all psychological other issues that with. And they may have to take medications to help them get through. They may have to take sleep medications to help them get through. So we are definitely evolving. As more information comes out, more technologies come out, we know better how to do different therapies. Now as far as peripheral neuropathy, peripheral neuropathy is pretty widespread. I’m getting patients even in their 50s that are developing peripheral neuropathy, where it used to be an old person’s disease. Like me, I’m 68, I’m not that old, but I’m getting there. But from my stroke, my hemorrhagic stroke had on my left side, I do have numbness and tingling in my fingers, my feet, and I do have pain with that.
Dr. Joseph Schneider (11:03): Some do the stroke and some do it to try and get rehabilitated through that process. So in our office though, we do use technologies that are very successful in bringing back nerves. One of the technologies that we use is called Stimpod. Now Stimpod is an excellent nerve rejuvenator. It’s just not A nerve stimulator. Okay, so with Stimpod, you have an electrical pad that you put on, connect this lead, and then you have a stimulation pod, right? So you can use the stimulation on the median nerve, right, which will stimulate the peripheral nerve into the fingers. Or you can do the tibial nerve in your leg and your foot. You can use the peroneal nerve. You can use any nerve you want. You just got to place the stimulator, right?
Dr. Joseph Schneider (12:03): But we’ve been using in the office, and we’re getting great results with it. And so we are making this stimpod available for home use. Now, when patients will transition out of the office, we want them to be more responsible for it so they can get care and they can do more at home. So the stimpod is not only a good peripheral nerve stimulator, but it’s also vagus nerve stimulator. So you can put it here on your neck for vagus nerve stimulation on both sides, right and left, which will stimulate the vagus nerve. But the thing about the pulse radio frequency, that it will help to generate more mitochondria.
Dr. Joseph Schneider (12:49): And we all know that for a nerve to be healthy, then the energy mechanism that makes what’s called an action potential available is due to loss of mitochondria, loss of the action potential within the nerve. And so for our nerves to communicate, it’s got to have an action potential. And this is the only stimulator that I know that actually will make the nerve healthier and all the places the nerve goes to healthier. Like the vagus nerve, the nuclei are in the brain stem. The brainstem communicates for the brain. If it’s a muscle nerve, it’s a sensory nerve. All those areas up to the brain are stimulated. Now, years ago, I used to do electrodiagnostics, and I used to somatosensory evoked potentials. Ah, big word.
Dr. Joseph Schneider (13:45): What it means is that when you stimulate the sensory nerve, you can actually map where that signal is going. And if that signal is going to the right place at the right strength, that we know that we have a healthy pathway and healthy functionality of the nerve itself. That’s amazing. But that’s just the way life is and the way things work. So by understanding how it works, understanding what’s natural to the system, we can start to stimulate it and plasticize it. So one of my masterclasses for peripheral neuropathy, we talk about, what’s the cause of peripheral neuropathy? Well, we’re going to say sugar handling, metabolic syndrome, diabetes, right is one of the major effects that we have. Right. But if you want to backtrack that a little bit, the basic thing is inflammation.
Dr. Joseph Schneider (14:45): Inflammation causes, if it’s too much, causes the nerve not to function properly, and if it’s long and it’s hard and it’s been there for a long time, then you get a degenerative aspect of the nerve. Nerve doesn’t function as well. The nerve can either die or the nerve can become dormant. So with all the peripheral neuropathy patients, we want is. We wanted to. Number one is we want to make sure that they handle sugars well, that they’re not causing too much inflammation. Well, you can get inflammation from a trauma itself to a nerve. You can inflammation from gut handling issues. You can get an inflammation from overreaction for immune system. You can get overaction to sensitivities or allergies within the body can cause inflammation.
Dr. Joseph Schneider (15:41): So we’re kind of like just fighting the inflammation and we got to find out where it comes from. So on our patients, we want to do food sensitivity testing, mold testing, heavy metals, and we’ll look at that wonderful chemical that we need to be normalized called cortisol. If it’s too low, it could be adrenal fatigue. If it’s too high, it’s sort of like Cushing syndrome, right? You get swelling in your face and your, your gut, so forth and so on. But when you use stimulators like this every day in the stimpod, you can actually stimulate your vagus nerve. Get yourself out of sympathetic overdrive, being in fight flight, fight fright, over and over and over again, or fight Fright and Flight. Three Fs you can be in that situation.
Dr. Joseph Schneider (16:44): This is a great stimulator to do vagal nerve aspects to it. And there’s a ton of vagal nerve stimulators out there, but there’s none more effective in the long term than this device right here. All right, this device, this stimulator, okay. And then you can, you know, change the intensity so it’s comfortable. And then you can also place it on the ear points on both sides, the tragus or the vagus nerve point in the inner ear. And you can be doing a lot of different things at home to help maintain and improve your system over time. Now, another thing that we use in the office, we use lasers. And the two lasers that I like the most is the one for multi radiance, the active pro. Okay. So we can turn this on.
Dr. Joseph Schneider (17:47): And then getting the response from that. There. But this is a Class 1 laser. There’s four classes of laser. Class 1. This is a super pulsed Class 1 laser, infrared red. And we can also add blue to it. This does blue, also blue light. So the color light is important, but you can actually use that on the vagus nerve itself, which improves blood flow and the hemoglobin, capturing oxygen. And then you can use it on your feet or your hands or different body parts for different types of syndromes. You can use a laser like this. Now, this is a clinical laser. This is about $15,000 for this laser. Usually people really out of their price range, but they have other one. One’s called the pain away laser.
Dr. Joseph Schneider (18:53): The other one’s called the Fibro pro, which is a bigger, bigger head, bigger shower to it. You can use for fibronalgia or pain. You can use peripheral neuropathy. Very, very potent and therapeutic laser that you can use. The other thing that you can do is we can use Draconia lasers. Now, the Arconi lasers are a little more pricey. You can use a red laser. Okay, This one’s a green violet. Four. There we go. And we can put in like 40 different protocols on this because you have light, okay? And the light that comes out. Is green and violet. Okay? Green and violet light. Now you can see I’m pulsing at different frequencies with light. You can pulse at different frequencies for different conditions, and they’re called rife frequencies.
Dr. Joseph Schneider (20:29): So I’ve had a lot of patients that have bought the green violet laser, the red violet, then there’s a red laser that you can use. And they all have the capacity, put in different protocols for different conditions. So depending on what you want and how much you need in your system. Now, I bought this for home. My wife and I use this laser almost every day. And very, very effective. I also use this laser. The pain away laser can actually come with a tip that you can do different acupuncture points with. And then you also can use different acupuncture points with the stimpod. Now these are three technologies that I think will change home care forever. Now, a lot of people use light pads. Light pads are fine. They’re effective, they’re therapeutic.
Dr. Joseph Schneider (21:35): But they’re not as powerful and as strong as the three different technologies I showed you today. The multi radiance laser, Class 1, the Erconia laser, Class 2, and the StimPod, which is just an electrical stimulator, not a light therapy. But these are the most powerful technologies that we have to help you for health. Now, when you’re investing in These, you’re investing in your health. When you invest in medications, you’re investing in your health, but they don’t change your function. They don’t make you stronger. Medications overall don’t make you stronger. They are necessary sometimes to save your life and to maintain you and help you function. But overall, they do not bring your baseline from a weakened state to a strong state.
Dr. Joseph Schneider (22:40): So I think I’m getting more talkative as my age comes, but I also get more talkative from working. Working like in this day and age has brought us gifts and therapeutic gifts for a lot of the neurological and functional things going on the body that actually take people’s lives away, and they don’t function as well. Even athletes, you know, I mean, that get into any injuries, their performance goes down. Now, if you want to just think about it as your performance, do you want to function every day at low performance or high performance? Do you want to have an injury and struggle through college, or do you want to have an injury and make your college experience the best ever it can be?
Dr. Joseph Schneider (23:34): If you’re in college sports and you want to be the best in your sport, then we’re the center to come to. We’ll get your body functioning better. We have other technologies that we just invested in. One’s the Gyrostim. The other one is our spryson.com spryson.com S P R Y S O N.com technology rotating chair with goggles. Yeah, we invested in the most expensive, the most therapeutically valid researched technologies on the market. And that’s why our center has such good response that may not be able to get at other places. And we’re just going to continue to work on those areas and really kind of enjoy watching our patients get better. Now, we didn’t say 100%, we didn’t say 120%, but they’re always possible.
Dr. Joseph Schneider (24:43): But we’re looking at 67% on patient systems that are really struggling to get through every day to get better. We based it on the numbers that we have. So that’s what we’re here for. So click on the link above. The link above. Schedule your consult call. Understand that we have systems that we can send you for peripheral neuropathy and neuropathy and help you with brain injury. And yeah, I think should click on our link, call us, have a console call with me, and let’s work to have 2026, 2027, and let’s say the next decade as your best decade ever. All right. I’m Dr. Joe Schneider from The Hope Brain Body Recovery Center. I’m a chiropractor and I’m proud of being a chiropractor. And I’ve studied functional neurology since 1989.
Dr. Joseph Schneider (25:51): I have received my diplomate, my fellowship, an advanced degree from Logan College, chiropractic for Neurology in 1991. So I’ve been around, I’ve been doing a lot. I also had managed two brain balance centers, one in Springfield, one in Cherry Hill. Unfortunately, I lost that. I had the back Connect pain relief center, that I practiced chiropractic and neurology for many years. And the other thing, I study like crazy. So I’ve studied nutrition all those years also. So I’ve gone to a lot of seminars on nutrition and I got my fellowship in acupuncture, clinical acupuncture as a chiropractor. I can’t do needles, but I can do no needle acupuncture. I can use stimpod on the acupuncture points. I can use other stimulators.
Dr. Joseph Schneider (26:53): I can use a laser with a pointer on it on those points. And we can get great results with all different types of technology. Now, acupuncture, let’s talk about acupuncture just for one second. We have an acugraph system and the acugraph system gives us a really good analysis of all the meridians, So many, many different things. We’re trying to be the best of the best. I think we’ve achieved that and we’ll continue to do that for our patients. We also have a medical doctor that runs the regeneration center, nurse practitioner. We do stem cell work, peptide work. So we got what it takes to reverse your illness and get your life back, which is really, really important because not only is quantity important, but quality of life is important.
Dr. Joseph Schneider (27:53): So click on the link above, schedule your consultation, and maybe we’re the right center for you. Let’s try to find out together and take on some of your most difficult problems with your health. Thank you very much. Have a great day. Dr. Joe Schneider from the Hope Brain and Body Recovery center, the Hope Regeneration center, and have a wonderful fourth of July holiday.
