"No Medications, No Shots, Just Results" is an unusual slogan for a healthcare practice — most patients are used to hearing the opposite. But according to Dr. Keith Volstad, DC, it's a fair description of what he's built at Jupiter FL Chiropractors, a Palm Beach Gardens, Florida practice where peripheral neuropathy has become a primary focus alongside traditional chiropractic care. In this conversation with Mark Anthony, Volstad walked through the functional medicine philosophy behind that approach, what his neuropathy protocol actually involves day to day, and a patient story that stuck with him for years.
Volstad, who describes himself as "originally a Midwesterner," moved to Florida in 1996 after roughly 13 years in practice in Indiana. For a while, he said, his work was standard chiropractic care and nothing else. Over time he went back to school for a three-year residency program in internal medicine within the chiropractic field, earning diplomate status from the American Board of Chiropractic Internists, and later became a diplomate of the American Clinical Board of Nutritionists as well. That additional training, he said, pushed him toward a more functional medicine approach — and eventually toward peripheral neuropathy specifically, a niche the practice has now focused on for about ten years. The phrase that gives the episode its title, he said, actually came from his wife.
Key Takeaways
- Functional medicine, as Dr. Volstad defines it, is care delivered without drugs or surgery — using lifestyle and nutritional changes to find and address a condition's root cause rather than just its symptoms.
- The practice's peripheral neuropathy protocol runs 90 days, combining in-office treatment with a daily at-home regimen, since he says neuropathy needs to be addressed every day, not just during office visits.
- In-office and at-home therapies include low-level laser (red light) therapy, specific electrical stimulation waveforms, magnetic therapy, whole-body vibration therapy, and targeted nutritional supplements.
- Patients are evaluated with the Toronto Diabetic Neuropathy Assessment Tool during an initial visit that typically runs an hour and a half to two hours, including a same-day report of findings.
- Standard chiropractic care is often billed through insurance, but the neuropathy, spinal/knee decompression, and functional medicine niches are cash-based — and the practice also offers a virtual protocol for patients outside Florida.
What "Functional Medicine" Actually Means
Volstad drew a clear line between what he called "big box" medical care and the functional medicine approach he now practices. In a conventional setting, he said, a patient comes in with a problem and typically leaves with medication; if that doesn't resolve things, they may wait months for a specialist referral without necessarily learning what's actually causing their symptoms. A functional medicine provider — whether an MD, DO, or DC, in his framing — instead tries to trace a condition back to its root cause before building a treatment plan, which he acknowledged can mean going down "several rabbit holes" before landing on the real issue.
He also pointed to a shift in how medical care itself is structured as part of the problem: he estimated that a significant share of the healthcare industry is now corporately owned, which he said changes the incentives toward moving patients through visits quickly rather than spending the time functional medicine often requires.
"Functional medicine is medical care — with a lowercase m — without drugs or surgery, where you utilize holistic lifestyle changes and nutritional changes to get the patient restored to health."
— Dr. Keith Volstad, DCInside the 90-Day Peripheral Neuropathy Protocol
Volstad broke down how his practice's time is currently split: roughly half general chiropractic care, about 35 to 40 percent peripheral neuropathy treatment, and the remainder spinal decompression for disc herniation, sciatica, and spinal stenosis — with knee decompression recently added as a newer offering.
For neuropathy patients specifically, the process starts with an exam that typically takes an hour and a half to two hours, covering history, consultation, examination, and a same-day report of findings. Volstad said his team uses the Toronto Diabetic Neuropathy Assessment Tool to gauge how much sensory loss a patient has experienced, which helps determine how advanced their neuropathy is before customizing a plan. From there, the protocol runs 90 days and splits into two parts: an in-office component and a daily at-home component, since he said neuropathy needs consistent, near-daily attention that isn't realistic to deliver through office visits alone.
The specific therapies he described include low-level laser therapy (also called red light or cold laser therapy, delivered in a range he cited as roughly 660 to 830 nanometers), specific electrical stimulation devices using particular waveforms and frequencies — which he distinguished from generic over-the-counter TENS units — magnetic therapy (which he said is uncommon among Florida practices), whole-body vibration therapy, and nutritional supplements taken at home. On the mechanism behind red light therapy, Volstad explained that the capillary beds supplying nerves can become inflamed — whether from diabetes-related sugar metabolism issues, chemotherapy, or other causes — which limits oxygen diffusion to nerve cells, a state called hypoxia, and that this oxygen starvation is what damages nerves and produces neuropathy symptoms. He also referenced nitric oxide production as part of red light therapy's effect on inflammation, noting that three researchers won the 1998 Nobel Prize in Medicine for identifying nitric oxide's role in the cardiovascular system.
Asked about outcomes, Volstad said the practice sees a 90 to 95 percent success rate with neuropathy patients — a figure he offered as his own practice experience rather than a cited clinical study.
A Patient Story: Back Behind the Wheel of a GT40
Volstad shared the story of an 87-year-old patient who came in with neuropathy severe enough that he'd stopped driving — a problem, since the car in question was his GT40, a high-end sports car he wasn't willing to give up. Volstad said the patient began treatment and, about six weeks in, drove himself to the office for an appointment. He described it as a genuine highlight of his career, and said the patient — whom he last saw six or seven years before this conversation — had continued doing well.
Cost, Coverage, and a Virtual Option for Out-of-State Patients
Volstad said standard chiropractic care is often billed through insurance for patients who carry it. The specialty niches, though — peripheral neuropathy treatment, spinal and knee decompression, and functional medicine work generally — are cash-based, since insurance typically doesn't cover them. He was direct that this is a real barrier for some patients who walk away rather than pay out of pocket, even when he believes the alternative is continued suffering.
Geographically, the practice is based in Palm Beach Gardens and serves the northern Palm Beach County area, including Jupiter, Juno Beach, and Lake Park, and draws patients from Martin County and as far as Port St. Lucie. For patients further away, Volstad described a virtual or remote version of the neuropathy protocol, mentioning that the practice has treated at least one patient based in Oregon.
