06/02/2025
🧠 Why I Do What I Do: My Journey Through Neurological Dysfunction and Recovery
A personal story by Dr. Jeremy Schmoe, DC, DACNB
Founder of The Functional Neurology Center | http://www.theFNC.com
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People often ask me why I got into functional neurology.
It wasn’t a decision I made overnight. It was something I lived through—something that shaped me over decades.
It started when I was a kid. My dad was in a severe motorcycle accident, breaking both of his legs. I remember being in kindergarten and seeing him in pain, going through surgery and physical rehab. That was the first time I understood what injury and healing looked like.
At the same time, I saw my mom struggling with autoimmune issues and chronic fatigue syndrome. She was exhausted, foggy, and often unable to function like she used to. Those experiences planted early seeds of curiosity: Why do some people recover, and others don’t? What controls that?
Later, I became an athlete—but that didn’t protect me from my own physical challenges. I dealt with serious shoulder injuries, including labrum tears and a distal clavicle surgery. After my second surgery, I developed what athletes call the “yips.” My biomechanics changed. I couldn’t throw the same. My brain and body were out of sync. That experience pulled me deeper into the study of motor control and movement neurology.
During undergrad, I interned with ARPwave—a neuro-electrical stimulation company that worked with pro athletes and patients with MS, Parkinson’s, and spinal cord injuries. That was my first deep exposure to bioelectric medicine—and it lit a fire in me. I dove into exercise physiology, neuromuscular science, and began questioning everything about how the brain communicates with the body.
That led me to functional neurology, and I made the decision to enter chiropractic school. But it was during school that things took a drastic turn.
I suffered two separate whiplash injuries while skiing—both of which caused significant concussion-like symptoms. At the time, I brushed it off. I thought I’d bounce back. But I didn’t. I started experiencing persistent post-concussion symptoms: neck pain, head pressure, visual disturbances, dizziness, and brain fog that came and went in waves.
Then came the tipping point.
After returning from a chiropractic mission trip to Costa Rica, my health completely unraveled.
I began rapidly losing weight, developed chronic dizziness, a rocking sensation, intense vertigo, and constant imbalance. I couldn’t tolerate driving or screen use. I experienced visual motion sensitivity, sound sensitivity, and what felt like a war inside my nervous system. I developed tremors, jerky limb movements, and what later appeared to be dystonic patterns in my neck and R arm. Simple sensory input—like lights, motion, or noise—would overwhelm me.
My symptoms matched what we now recognize as 3PD (persistent postural-perceptual dizziness), post-concussion syndrome, and cervical-vestibular dysfunction. And to make things worse, I learned I was also dealing with Lyme disease, Babesia, and mold toxicity—a perfect storm of infections and inflammation attacking my brain and autonomic nervous system.
At that time, I could barely function. I couldn’t work for anyone else, so I started my own clinic. In the beginning, I could only tolerate working 15 hours a week with patients. Yet, somehow, I could still lecture. I started speaking at events, teaching clinicians, and helping others understand what was going wrong in the brain—while still experiencing it myself.
Despite my symptoms, I completed the Traumatic Brain Injury certification through the Carrick Institute and built out clinical systems for treating complex neurological dysfunction. The same symptoms I was treating in others—concussion, dysautonomia, dizziness, vertigo, motor dysfunction, brain fog—were what I was facing daily in my own body.
So I used myself as a case study.
Through a combination of functional neurology, functional medicine, vestibular rehab, eye movement retraining, neuro-electrical stimulation, nutritional detox, manual therapy, and adjusting to neutral—I started to heal.
Little by little, my symptoms faded. The brain fog lifted. The rocking stopped. My eyes stabilized. My energy came back. My cognitive function returned. I could finally begin to thrive again.
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Now, as the founder of The Functional Neurology Center, I’ve built a clinic designed to help the kinds of patients most systems fail.
• People with chronic post-concussion symptoms
• Those who feel floaty, disconnected, overstimulated
• Patients with brain fog, autonomic dysfunction, or chronic dizziness
• Individuals with movement disorders, vertigo, or central pain syndromes
• People who’ve seen 10+ doctors but still don’t feel like themselves
I know what it’s like to be told “everything looks normal” when you feel anything but.
I know what it’s like to fear you’ll never get your life back.
That’s why I do what I do.
At TheFNC, we don’t just look at symptoms. We look at systems—the brain, the eyes, the inner ear, the spine, the immune system, and how it’s all integrated. We use cutting-edge assessments and hands-on neurological rehab to retrain how the brain communicates with the body.
This clinic is built for the people who’ve been searching for answers.
And I’m here to tell you: There is hope.
Thank you for reading my story. I hope it helps you feel less alone—and more empowered.
— Dr. Jeremy Schmoe, DC, DACNB
Founder | The Functional Neurology Center
🌐 http://www.theFNC.com
📍 Minnetonka, MN
