Dr. Marc Ott, D.C. was fascinated with Chiropractic's philosophy that taught that a person could heal from within, without the use of drugs, surgery or their harmful side effects. After graduating with his doctorate degree in chiropractic he opened what is today Integrative Physical Medicine of Orlando where he has been making changes in peoples lives by helping them overcome Peripheral Neuropathy.

Neuropathy sometimes can be severely debilitating and may adversely affect a persons social life. It may seriously limit a persons functioning and may make even everyday simple tasks almost impossible to complete. Certain severe forms of neuropathy like the Guillain-Barre Syndrome may make a person completely bedridden for many weeks, while in many other cases, like autonomic neuropathy causing incontinence, the affected person voluntarily starts avoiding all social gatherings due to fear of embarrassment.

Neuropathy may cause social exclusion by severely disabling a person. Often patients with neuropathy may have difficulty in walking and sometimes even frank ataxia also. Patients might develop certain deformities, for example, claw hand due to nerve damage, and may start avoiding social gatherings. The pain and altered sensations like tingling, numbness and other paraesthesias associated with neuropathy sometimes might be very severe and may make the patient seek comfort of home more rather than going out. Diabetic patients with distal neuropathy affecting the lower limbs may prefer to stay at home due to fear of causing injury to the foot. Diabetes often runs in families, and many a times, the patients have witnessed in other family members the serious complications arising from such an injury and are thus are very cautious. Bowel disturbances like severe diarrhea may also make a person more and more confined to home, especially if he has other symptoms of neuropathy.

One way in which involvement of autonomic nervous system in neuropathy may present is with incontinence. The most common form is urinary incontinence but fecal incontinence may also occur. In urinary incontinence, there is involuntary leakage of urine from the bladder. Similarly, in fecal incontinence, there is an involuntary passage of stool. Incontinence is one of the most important causes of social exclusion in people suffering from neuropathy. The social withdrawal is most often voluntary due to fear of humiliation and embarrassment. Patients tend to avoid all social gatherings and prefer to remain confined to their homes. Autonomic neuropathy may also cause impotence in men and make them socially withdrawn because of low self-esteem because of being unable to achieve erection. Sometimes autonomic neuropathy may present as gustatory sweating, in which there is profuse sweating on forehead, face, scalp and neck whenever a person ingests food. A person may feel very embarrassed by this condition and may start becoming socially withdrawn due to fear of embarrassment. These are few examples of how a neuropathy can lead to social exclusion.