Getting Back On Your Feet: Chinese Herbal Medicine for Reversing Nerve Damage in Peripheral Neuropathy Treatment

Chinese Medicine of Idaho herbal clinic is now Folkwise Herbal Medicine! Please visit my new website here to get started with clinical herbal medicine treatment, or shop the Folkwise line of herbal products.

“My doctor said I have peripheral neuropathy. He said it's "idiopathic,” which means they don't know why I have it. When I asked about treatment options, he said there aren't any. Can you help me?"

I’ve heard some version of this story many times in my clinic.

My answer?

Yes.

I do know why you have peripheral neuropathy, and I do have effective treatment options for you- not just for temporary pain reduction, but to reverse the nerve damage and provide long-term relief. 

I've had excellent success with treating cases of idiopathic neuropathy, diabetic neuropathy, and chemotherapy-induced neuropathy, ranging from mild to severe. 

How, you ask?

Let’s get into it!

First of all, I provide patient-centered clinical treatment for peripheral neuropathy through my online herbal clinic. The primary method I use is individualized internal herbal medicine formulas. 

I offer additional support with a special herbal foot soak that I formulated over years of experience working with neuropathy patients. 

In this article I am going to dive deep into how peripheral neuropathy “works”, what causes it, and how we use Chinese herbal medicine to reverse it.  I will also cover some of the problems with nerve medications.

“Last Fall I developed a peripheral neuropathy which made my feet burn all night. It was impossible to sleep. After spending thousands in diagnostic studies, with no recommended course other than to strip veins, I tried something different. Within a few weeks of acupuncture and herbal treatment the pain subsided such that I had completely pain free days and nights. I'm still continuing treatment, but this has been one of the best decisions I've made to get well.”  - Google review from Brian H.

Table of Contents

1. What the heck is ‘peripheral neuropathy’?

2. Why nerve pain medications are not the answer

3. The best treatment for peripheral neuropathy

4. Getting started with herbal medicine

I. What the heck is ‘peripheral neuropathy’?

It’s a mouthful, isn’t it?

When you first started having symptoms you probably didn’t have a name for them⸺just this strange feeling in your feet or fingers that someone eventually informed you was ‘peripheral neuropathy’.

Peripheral neuropathy can present a variety of ways, pain, burning, tingling, altered sensitivity, phantom sensations, coldness, numbness, or pins and needles. No matter how it shows up peripheral neuropathy has one things in common: all of these symptoms are caused by changes in nerve function. 

This is a well-known fact.

What is less well-known, but actually more important, is that the change in nerve function is caused by impaired blood circulation.

Every tissue and organ in the body needs oxygenated blood flow to function properly, including nerves.

Peripheral nerves receive blood supply from the small arteries and vessels in the tissue surrounding the nerve, as well as from blood vessels within the nerve tracts themselves. 

Neuropathy symptoms of tingling, pain, burning, etc. are often mistaken for a nerve "acting up", or being "overactive." 

It's actually the opposite!

These symptoms occur when the nerve is undernourished, not overstimulated. Think of the discomfort you feel as the nerve’s cries for help as they are cut off from the oxygenated blood they need to survive. 

The sensation of numbness is more obviously a reduction in nerve function, but all abnormal sensations, including pain and burning, are the result of diminished nerve function.

Think of it this way: imagine you are out in the cold for a long time but forgot to bring your gloves. At first, you hands become cold, then they begin to really hurt. That pain is the blood retreating from your extremities to the core of your body. You are experiencing the sensation of nerves without quite enough blood supply. If you stay out longer, the pain goes away. Your hands are numb. So much blood has left your extremities that nerve function is mostly offline in your fingers. 

Now imagine you go back inside where it's nice and toasty. As your hands go from frozen and numb to normal, there will be an in-between state where they are tingling, burning, and painful again.

That in-between state is where the blood supply isn't at 100% and so the nerve function is also not 100% normal. When the nerve is getting all the blood it needs, you experience normal sensation. When it's getting no blood, or very little, you experience absence of sensation. When it’s getting some but not enough, you experience altered sensation (pain, tingling, burning, dulled sensation, etc).

Reversing peripheral neuropathy is as simple as restoring good blood circulation in the body.

I help my patients accomplish this with Chinese herbal medicine.

In most cases, we begin with an herbal formula to bring down cardiovascular inflammation, open up blocked vessels, and support healthy nerve function. In addition, I recommend using my foot soak formula, which is designed specifically to support healthy blood circulation and nerve function. 

However, the cause of the impaired blood circulation (and thereby the cause of the peripheral neuropathy) will be different with different people. We must determine your underlying cause, and treat you accordingly.

One of the great strengths of Chinese herbal medicine is that it is tailored to each individual’s needs; I will create herbal formulas just for you and your peripheral neuropathy. 

If you want to learn more about how Chinese Medicine works, please read my article About Chinese Medicine.

There are many reasons why a person might develop impaired blood circulation. Sometimes it is a combination of multiple factors, rather than just one culprit.

High cholesterol levels can lead to blocked blood vessels. 

High blood glucose (including pre-diabetes and diabetes) can cause vascular damage and cardiovascular inflammation. 

A sedentary lifestyle leads to poor movement of blood.  

A weak heart muscle or heart valve dysfunction can impair the heart’s ability to pump with enough force to move blood through the body effectively. 

High blood pressure can cause damage to the vessel walls, and low blood pressure can result in not enough pressure to move blood through the body. 

Chemotherapeutic agents used in cancer treatment can cause cardiovascular inflammation and damage. 

And then there’s stress, which can increase blood pressure, blood sugar levels, and cardiovascular inflammation all at the same time!

What once sounded simple is starting to sound complicated! It’s easy to see why even though the diagnosis-peripheral neuropathy- is the same for everyone, the treatment must be tailored to you specifically in order to get the best result.

II. Why nerve pain medications are not the answer

Nerve pain medications* are the most commonly prescribed medications for treatment of peripheral neuropathy. 

*specific drug names have been removed from this article due to Google censorship

These medications work by suppressing nerve activity to reduce pain sensation. 

But remember: the problem is not “over-active” nerves. The problem is actually under-active nerves, nerves that are slowly dying and crying out to you for help with pain signals because they desperately need more blood supply to stay alive. 

Taking medications like gab******n and pre******n work to reduce pain for many patients. The pain is suppressed, but the nerve degeneration and nerve death continues to march on since nothing has been done to improve the blood flow to the nerves. 

Without addressing the root cause, the neuropathy will worsen. You’ll need a higher dose of gab******n. Eventually you’ll hit a maximum dose, gab******n will cease to work for you, and your neuropathy may eventually impair your ability to walk or perform motor tasks.

Another concern is the nerve pain medication's effect on your entire nervous system.

Think about it: this medication is suppressing nerve activity. Nerve activity is a basic need for being alive. When your nervous function is suppressed too much, cognitive function, balance, and coordination will suffer. 

Let me tell you a story: a few years ago I called an Uber to take me home from the dentist. I’d been lightly sedated for some heavy dental work and wasn’t supposed to drive. Despite being a little ‘out of it’ myself, I quickly noticed the driver’s slurred speech. A few miles down the road I noticed he was having difficulty keeping the car in our lane. After he crossed the yellow line and caused a whole line of cars to swerve to avoid hitting us, I asked him to let me out. 

I’ve treated a lot of patients who were on gab******n, so I recognize the pattern pretty well. Before I left I asked him if he was on gab******n. 

“Yeah,” he said. “My doctor won’t give me anymore, and it still hurts.” 

III. The best treatment for peripheral neuropathy

As I mentioned before, the treatment method for peripheral neuropathy is straightforward: improve the microcirculation of blood and the nerve function improves.

So why does your doctor have no explanation and nothing to offer you? 

It mostly has to do with the fact that Western Medicine is only about 400 years old and its primary focus has been perfecting the very difficult art of saving our lives in emergencies, performing heroic surgeries, and treating late-stage diseases.

So they've been kind of busy with that.

Chinese Medicine, on the other hand, has been focused on prevention and treatment of early-stage disease and maintaining health for 2,000 years. So we tend to have more tools for improving quality of life and understanding the bigger picture of physiology as it relates to chronic conditions.

Another aspect of this gap in understanding of peripheral neuropathy has to do with the Western medical theory that nerve tissue and vascular tissue are completely separate, despite the fact that they are very clearly not. Chinese Medicine doctors dissecting cadavers thousands of years ago understood this, and that's why we already have treatment methods that work well. Modern researchers have recently been "discovering" the importance of blood supply to nerve tissue, but it still might take another few years (or decades) to make it from research papers into clinical studies and at last to a solution readily available from your family medicine doctor.

IV. Getting started with herbal medicine treatment

So, what’s the next step?

Chinese Medicine of Idaho herbal clinic is now Folkwise Herbal Medicine!

Please visit my new website here to get started with clinical herbal medicine treatment, or shop the Folkwise line of herbal products.

You’ll find information about me, my practice, Chinese Medicine, herb sourcing, and more.

I look forward to hearing from you.

Sincerely,

Sean Dugan L.Ac.