"Why Did Your Doctor Tell You Nothing Can Be Done for Your Neuropathy?"
(And Why That Answer, While Understandable, Is Incomplete)
If you've been living with neuropathy for any amount of time, you have probably heard some version of these words from a medical professional:
"There's nothing we can do." "You'll just have to learn to manage it." "The nerves are damaged — that's permanent." "We can try to control the pain with medication."
And if you're reading this page, you've probably been told that before — maybe more than once. My average new patient has already heard it from three separate doctors.
So let me answer the question directly: Why do doctors say this?
The short answer is: because within their scope of practice, within the tools they are allowed to prescribe, and within what medical schools have historically taught about neuropathy — they are largely correct.
The longer answer is why you should keep reading.
THE MEDICAL SYSTEM IS NOT DESIGNED TO FIX NEUROPATHY
What Doctors Are Trained to Do
When a neurologist evaluates your neuropathy, they are trained to identify the cause, confirm the diagnosis, and manage the symptoms. The tools available to them are primarily pharmaceutical — medications like gabapentin, pregabalin, duloxetine, and others that work by quieting the nervous system's pain signals. These drugs do not heal nerves. They dampen the message the nerves are sending.
This is why patients on these medications often say the pain is "less sharp" but they still can't feel their feet, still can't balance, still can't sleep, and often feel foggy or exhausted from the medication itself.
That is not a failure of your doctor's care. That is the honest limit of what pharmaceuticals can do for damaged nerves. Your doctor told you "nothing can be done" because within what a medical doctor can prescribe, that is largely true.
For most of the last century, the medical consensus was that peripheral nerve damage was largely permanent. Nerves, unlike skin or bone, do not heal easily or quickly. That understanding shaped an entire generation of neurologists and primary care physicians who were trained to manage neuropathy symptoms rather than pursue the underlying cause of nerve deterioration.
That consensus has shifted — but medical education moves slowly. Research published over the last two decades, and especially the last five years, has changed what is possible. But many practicing physicians were not trained on that research and are not required to update their approach.
What Medical Schools Have Taught About Nerve Regeneration
THE ACTUAL CAUSE OF NEUROPATHY SYMPTOMS — AND WHY IT MATTERS
What Is Really Happening to Your Nerves
In approximately 90% of neuropathy cases — regardless of the underlying cause — the mechanism of nerve damage is the same: the nerve endings at the skin level are being deprived of oxygen and blood flow. When nerve cells at the skin's surface are consistently starved of circulation, they die off and recede deeper into the tissue. As they retreat, they begin to misfire on their own — generating the burning, numbness, tingling, sharp pains, and the sensation of walking on cardboard or a sponge that are the hallmarks of peripheral neuropathy.The balance problems occur because the nerves on the soles of your feet are responsible for telling your brain where your feet are in relation to your body — proprioception. As those nerves deteriorate, that signal weakens. The brain compensates as best it can, but falling becomes a real risk. The Question Nobody AsksHere is what most neuropathy patients have never been asked by a medical doctor: What if the nerves are not permanently destroyed — what if they are just not getting enough blood flow and oxygen to function correctly? Because if the problem is oxygen starvation, then restoring circulation to those nerve endings is not a fantasy — it's an engineering challenge. And it is one that science has made significant progress on.
The Question Nobody Asks
Here is what most neuropathy patients have never been asked by a medical doctor: What if the nerves are not permanently destroyed — what if they are just not getting enough blood flow and oxygen to function correctly?
Because if the problem is oxygen starvation, then restoring circulation to those nerve endings is not a fantasy — it's an engineering challenge. And it is one that science has made significant progress on.
THE SCIENCE YOUR DOCTOR MAY NOT KNOW ABOUT
The Nobel Prize Discovery That Changed Everything
In 1998, three American scientists — Robert Furchgott, Louis Ignarro, and Ferid Murad — were awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for discovering how nitric oxide controls blood flow in the body. Nitric oxide is the molecule the body uses to signal blood vessels to dilate and deliver circulation to tissues.
This discovery is not theoretical. It is validated, reproducible science — the highest level of recognition in medicine.
What the research following that discovery revealed is that stimulating the body's natural production and utilization of nitric oxide can increase blood flow to peripheral tissues — including the nerve endings in the feet and hands that neuropathy destroys.
This is the foundation of the treatment protocol used at the Neuropathy Treatment Center of Arizona. The devices used in this program are built on FDA-cleared technology specifically designed to stimulate the body's production of nitric oxide — increasing circulation to the damaged nerve endings consistently enough, and frequently enough, to allow them to begin functioning again.
Why Frequency Matters — and Why This Has to Be Done at Home
Here is the critical insight that explains why in-office treatments for neuropathy so often fail: nerve rehabilitation requires consistent, repeated stimulation over time. A session once a week in a clinic is not enough. The nerve endings need to receive increased blood flow regularly — ideally daily — to rebuild their function.
That is only possible if the treatment is done at home. It is also why the results can last — because the patient continues the treatment on their own schedule, long after the initial recovery. The nerves are not just being managed. They are being rehabilitated requiring maintaince for the long term relief.
WHY YOU STILL MIGHT NOT BELIEVE THIS — AND
WHY THE 98% IS REAL
The Neuropathy Industry Has a Serious Credibility Problem
I will be honest with you about something: there is a lot of fraud in the neuropathy treatment space. There are devices on TV and online that promise relief and deliver nothing. There are clinics that will accept any patient regardless of whether they can help them. There are supplements marketed with dramatic claims that have no clinical basis.
This has created — entirely reasonably — a deeply skeptical neuropathy patient population. You have probably spent money on something that didn't work. Possibly more than once. When a doctor told you "nothing can be done," that experience may have quietly confirmed what you already suspected.
I cannot erase that history with words. So instead, let me show you the logic behind the number I claim — and let you decide whether it holds up.
How I Know My 98% Success Rate Is Real
Anyone can print a number on a website. What most clinics cannot tell you is how they arrived at it, or why their patients would have any reason to be honest if it wasn't true. I can tell you both.
The buy-back program. Because my protocols are not covered by insurance, I structured the program around a financial commitment with real teeth. If you complete the program as directed and do not see measurable results within six months, I buy back your equipment. The buy-back returns the majority of what you paid — typically $2,000 to $3,000 — less a factory refurbishing fee so the equipment can be recertified for the next patient, and less the cost of the supplements used during the six months of treatment.
This program exists because of something personal. I became a chiropractor because chiropractic saved me from back surgery at 28 — it changed my life and I went back to school. My mother had lived with neuropathy since I was 12. Finding something that actually worked for neuropathy became a mission I couldn't set aside. But she passed away before I found it. Seven years after my parents were gone, I developed the treatment approach I use today.
When my siblings and I went through my parents' affairs, we discovered they had spent tens of thousands of dollars over twenty years trying to find relief for my mother. Every provider took their money. None of them gave her lasting results. I was too late to help her — and I have never been willing to build a practice that repeats that story for someone else's family. If this does not work for you, I want the majority of your money back in your hands. Not because a lawyer told me to offer it. Because I know exactly what the alternative looks like.
Here is why that matters for the 98% claim: if this program were not working for a patient, they have $2,000 to $3,000 waiting for them the moment they return the equipment. There is no financial reason to stay quiet. No polite obligation to say things are going well. The money is right there, available, if the treatment fails.
I am in contact with every patient throughout the entire program. I meet with each patient twice a month for the first three months, then once a month until they are stable. I am available by phone seven days a week from 7am to 8pm — not a callback line, not a message portal — so patients can reach me directly at any point with any question or concern.
This is not a passive program. I am watching every patient's progress in real time. If something is not working, we adjust. Nothing is assumed. Nothing goes unmonitored.
Because of that contact, patients know we are working toward the same goal. When someone knows their doctor genuinely tracks their progress and will act on what they report, honesty becomes easy. There is no reason to downplay a problem, because the doctor is paying attention and can do something about it.
The conclusion. The buy-back program has been in place for 18 months. In that time, I have had to honor it 2% of the time. That is a documented, transaction-level fact. When 98 out of 100 patients — each with $2,000 to $3,000 on the table — choose not to return their equipment, it is because the treatment is working and they know it. That 2% is also consistent with the results I have tracked across 18 years and over 1,750 treated patients, which is why I am confident the number is real and not an artifact of a short window.
There is one more thing the buy-back is designed to do. In 18 years I have evaluated over 5,500 people with neuropathy. Nine out of ten were candidates for treatment — but not all of them started. For many, the cost felt like too great a risk after everything they had already spent on things that did not last. I believe I could have helped the majority of them. The buy-back program is partly an attempt to reach those people — to remove enough of the financial risk that cost and doubt are no longer the reasons someone stays stuck.
That is where the 98% comes from. Not a survey. Not self-reported feelings. A financial record backed by 18 years of clinical history — and a program built specifically so that cost and doubt are no longer reasons to stay stuck.
A Note on "Curing" vs. "Treating" Neuropathy
I want to be precise here, because I believe in honesty over salesmanship.
Neuropathy has underlying causes — over 200 of them, according to the Mayo Clinic. A cure for neuropathy would require a cure for each underlying cause. That does not exist. What I offer is not a cure.
What I offer is treatment that, in 98% of the patients I accept, reduces pain, burning, and numbness by 65 to 100%, improves balance by 60 to 100%, and — because the treatment is done at home on an ongoing basis — can maintain those results for life.
That is not the same as curing neuropathy. It is also not "nothing."
What I Got Wrong — and What I Did About It
I want to tell you something that most providers in this field would never say publicly. I think you deserve to hear it.
When I began treating neuropathy in 2008, I believed I had found a cure. I treated patients on that premise for seven years. The in-office treatments worked — patients felt real improvement, and I was confident in what I was doing.
In 2015, I surveyed 200 patients I had treated between 2008 and 2014 to see how they were doing. What I heard stopped me cold. For nearly all of them, the neuropathy had returned within four to six months of stopping treatment. They were frustrated. Many felt they had wasted their money. They were right to feel that way.
I had not defrauded anyone. The treatment worked — it just did not last once they stopped coming in. But the result for those patients was the same as if I had taken their money and given them nothing permanent. That was not acceptable to me.
So I changed everything.
I moved to a home treatment model — because what the science showed, and what those 200 patients confirmed, was that nerve rehabilitation requires ongoing, consistent stimulation. You cannot do that once a week in a clinic. You can only do it at home, on your own schedule, as a regular part of your life. That is the only way the results hold.
At that point, only about 71% of patients responded to what we were doing, so I added an in-office trial phase at a reduced fee before patients purchased their home equipment — so both of us could confirm the treatment was working for them before they made a larger investment.
In 2020, I was given the opportunity to test out some new technology. I had a patient that had not responded to anything I had to offer up until that time. She had been forced into a motorized wheelchair due to balance issues and was able to walk with a cane while holding on to someone within 3 weeks of the test and it only got better from there. The new technology significantly improved the overall effectiveness of my protocols. Through experience with that technology, I also became better at identifying in advance which patients would benefit — well enough that I could move entirely to home care from the start, backed by the buy-back program. That shift also allowed me to reduce staff and overhead, which reduced the cost to patients.
The result of all of that is the program that exists today: a 98% response rate, a buy-back program for the 2% it does not help, and treatments that hold because patients continue them at home for life.
I am telling you this history because I think you should know who you are talking to. Not someone who has always had it figured out. Someone who got it wrong, listened to the people he had failed, and rebuilt the program from the ground up to make it right.
I am telling you this history because I think you should know who you are talking to. Not someone who has always had it figured out. Someone who got it wrong, listened to the people he had failed, and rebuilt the program from the ground up to make it right.
You Have Nothing to Lose by Having One Honest Conversation.
The consultation is free. There is no pressure. There is no sales pitch. It exists because I believe you deserve an honest evaluation — and because I don't take cases I don't believe I can help.
If you are one of the 9 in 10 neuropathy sufferers who can benefit from this program, I will tell you that clearly, explain exactly what the treatment involves, and let you decide.
If you are the 1 in 10 I cannot help, you will know that — at no cost — and I'll do everything I can to point you in the right direction.
One phone call. That's all it takes to find out which you are.
The Phone is Anwsered 7 Days a Week, 7AM-8PM
Dr. Patrick Sartz, DC, BCN
Board Certified in Neuropathy · Mesa, Arizona
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