What causes neuropathy symptoms

True peripheral neuropathy stems from systemic causes: diabetes and prediabetes, vitamin deficiencies (especially B12), thyroid dysfunction, certain medications including some chemotherapy agents, alcohol, autoimmune conditions, and sometimes no identifiable cause. These require medical evaluation and management — controlling blood sugar, correcting deficiencies, adjusting medications — and no amount of hands-on care substitutes for that.

But a significant number of people who believe they have 'neuropathy' are actually experiencing mechanical nerve compression: lumbar nerve root irritation from a disc or degenerative narrowing producing numbness and burning into the feet, cervical involvement producing the same into the hands, or entrapments like carpal tunnel and tarsal tunnel. Others have both — an underlying diabetic neuropathy plus a spinal compression layered on top, each worsening the other. Sorting out which pattern you have changes everything about what will help.

How we evaluate it at Vitality Chiropractic

Your evaluation starts with a thorough history — medical conditions, medications, the pattern and timeline of your symptoms — because pattern is diagnostic: symmetric, stocking-glove numbness in both feet points systemic, while symptoms following a specific nerve path, differing side to side, or changing with spinal position point mechanical. The examination includes neurological testing (sensation, reflexes, strength), nerve tension tests, and joint-by-joint assessment of the spine and pelvis for the restricted segmental motion affecting nerve function — vertebral subluxation — that our model is built to detect. Thermal scanning and HRV testing provide objective nervous system baselines we can re-test against, and lumbar or cervical X-rays are taken when clinically indicated to assess degenerative narrowing. If your findings point systemic and you don't yet have a medical workup, our first recommendation will be getting one — and we'll say so at your report of findings.

What care looks like

Where the examination identifies a mechanical component, we treat it: specific adjusting and flexion-distraction to reduce compression and restore motion at involved spinal levels, lumbar traction when indicated, and care for entrapment points along the limb. For the symptom burden itself, Avant laser therapy is a supportive tool — using specific wavelengths of light to reduce pain and inflammation and improve circulation to irritated nerve tissue, without medication. Many patients also benefit from the foundations we coach every practice member on: daily movement, hydration, sleep, and clean nutrition — which matter doubly when blood sugar is part of your picture, and where our Vitality Reset nutrition program can support the work you're doing with your physician. Your plan is written, with re-evaluations that re-test sensation and function against baseline — so you see objectively whether care is helping.

When chiropractic first makes sense — and when we refer

If your symptoms are one-sided, follow a nerve path, or vary with position, a mechanical evaluation is a sensible early step — that pattern is often treatable conservatively. We refer, or insist on medical co-management, when the picture is symmetric and systemic, when you have diabetes without current medical oversight, when symptoms are rapidly progressive, or when examination findings warrant nerve conduction testing. We also refer immediately for red flags like new weakness with bowel or bladder changes. We would rather send you to the right provider than sell you the wrong plan — that is a promise, and it's why patients trust us with the rest of their care.