Neuropathy Institute
The Neuropathy Institute, located in Spokane Valley, WA, provides specialized care to patients suffering neuropathy. We treat all types of neuropathy and utilize an approach that reverses symptoms over 80 % of the time.
The Neuropathy Institute is unlike other neuropathy clinics. We focus on improving the patient's neuropathy instead of providing medication/s to mask neuropathy symptoms. Our goal is to reverse the symptoms without medications, and our success rate is unmatched. We use no surgery, needles, pins, medications or supplements of any kind; rather, our treatment modalities are based on physical medicine. Another difference concerns side effects of treatment. There are no side effects with our treatments, which we call the Palmer Protocol.
Success at the Neuropathy Institute is measured by how much the neuropathy reverses. It’s expected the patient will begin to experience a reversal of symptoms including reduced electric-like shooting pain, burning, less numbness, improved balance, and/or reduced clumsiness. At no time will the treatment plan focus only on masking symptom. We are more interested in reversing the symptoms to a tolerable level. We don't claim to cure neuropathy, we reverse symptoms.
Medications that only treat symptoms and offer no help in reversing the disease process are available elsewhere and not at the Neuropathy Institute. The obsession is neuropathy reversal and we pursue it with passion. We’re not interested in providing care to mask the symptoms. We focus on reversing the condition which always results in reducing the symptoms.
We treat all types of neuropathy with particular emphasis in limb salvage work to avoid amputations. Patients are treated using the “Palmer Protocol”- a treatment regimen developed by the Neuropathy Institute and its founder, Dr. Jim Palmer, who suffers peripheral neuropathy in both feet. The Palmer Protocol treatments are designed to improve the overall health of the affected body part. Once the affected foot or leg (or both) are restored to better health, the tissues behave as they should and no longer produce neuropathy symptoms. In medical terms, the neurological tissues experience increased homeostasis and decreased pathology; resulting in less symptoms.
Patients generally report relief in 3 areas: pain and discomfort, sensory deficits, and clumsiness and balance issues. As for pain and discomfort, Palmer Protocol treatments usually reverse these symptoms first, followed by decreased sensory deficits. Balance and clumsiness issues often resolve last. As a patient improves, they get better gradually. They don't wake up one day and note “no more neuropathy," Rather, after each treatment, patients usually report a decrease in pain intensity or frequency. When repeated often enough the treatments result in markedly reduced neuropathy symptoms.
We hear things like, “I don’t get the electric-like pains so often now," or “the stabbing pain is less intense.”
As sensory deficits improve, patients report less numbness, greater ability to feel hot and cold liquids with their hands, less “pins and needles” feelings and things like “the sponges are now only 2 inches thick. I was walking on 4 inches before.”
Improved balance will often manifest as an improved gait that is usually first noted by a spouse or friend, before the patient realizes the change. Patients will report using their cane less at home, not needing a walker any more, no longer needing the “foot drop” brace due to improved strength, and the ability to walk longer distances. The point is, relief comes in increments as the health of the body part improves. Neuropathy Institute treatments are intended to improve homeostasis with each visit.
Regarding the minority of patients who fail to heal, we are unable to explain why. All patients receive the Palmer Protocol treatments, but for some reason, not all improve. Improving the patient's health is our goal at the Neuropathy Institute, but we don’t always succeed. Helping most patients leaves others wondering why they didn’t improve and leaves us wondering as well. We use the same time tested procedures (Palmer Protocol) on each patient, but like most things in medicine, it 's not 100 per cent. It's a great accomplishment when compared to other clinics, but devastating to those who fail to improve. We are working hard to develop a treatment for those who fail to see a reversal.
We have experienced problems even when the clinical picture improves. For example, it is not unusual for the patient to have little or no feeling in a foot when treatments begin. As that patient improves, the numbness in the foot decreases and the patient notes increased sensations of the foot, which for some are pain sensations. The patient has improved clinically, in that the lack of sensations (numbness) has been replaced with the actual sensation of pain. Patients sometimes have a problem with this pain and interrupt their care.
Limb salvage work is designed to reduce the amputation risk of patients suffering an ulcer. The focus here is to "jump start" the immune system to heal the ulcer and avoid infections. At the Neuropathy Institute, we’re not obsessed with understanding every little aspect of neuropathy; rather, we focus on treating the disorder. Recall that the Egyptians used the water wheel for a thousand years before Newton explained what was going on. We do not need to know everything about a disorder to effectively treat it. Knowing everything would be great, but, we are happy to know how to treat neuropathy and will leave the details to further research. We’re not so sure why patients get neuropathy, but we're really good at reversing it.
The stated goal of the Neuropathy Institute is to rip the heart out of the amputation industry. This goal is closer than most people think and will happen once neuropathy is diagnosed early and effectively treated to prevent complications. It might take some time though, in light of the overwhelming amount of medical literature that mistakenly regards neuropathy as a progressive, irreversible disorder that results in amputation or, if you're lucky, a wheelchair. That is simply not true. We note that neuropathy does not respond well to drugs or surgery, but if treated effectively, using the Palmer Protocol, most cases (our experience is over 80% of AZ, ID, and VA patient's) will reverse symptoms. The process usually continues until the patient reaches MMI (maximum medical improvement) at which point the patients discontinue active care and fall into 1 of 2 groups: those needing regular care to keep the symptoms reversed and those who don't. Some patients are symptom free for as much as 1 1/2 - 2 years after their last treatment, others are treated every 30, 60, 90...days. There is no way to predict in advance which group a patient will join.
When it comes to neuropathy reversal, the medical literature is grossly misleading and provides little comfort to those suffering the condition. Almost everything written fails to address reversal and leaves the misleading impression that the condition lacks an effective treatment. Neuropathy itself is difficult and misleading medical literature makes it worse. The literature should state that if treated with drugs and surgery, neuropathy is often a progressive, irreversible condition; but, if treated effectively, using the Palmer Protocol, the condition will usually reverse.
The Neuropathy Institute conducts research on each patient we treat. We use measurement outcome tools to determine the results of treatments. Patients are evaluated before they're treated and again periodically once treatments begin. The data collected are used to refine our treatments to better reverse neuropathy.
Web Site Last Updated: March 17, 2014
