Neurology · Boao Lecheng cluster
Diabetic polyneuropathy: treatment in China, Hainan
At night the feet burn; by day they feel like cotton wool — and the painkiller was chosen once, never changed. In the Boao Lecheng cluster on Hainan the complications and a second opinion on your regimen take four days; at home, months. No cellular technology is permitted in the zone for this diagnosis, and we say so before you book. The first step is free: Dr Yang reads your records and says whether coming is worth it.
About the condition
Where to start, and what cannot wait
Time is working against you. A foot that has lost sensation no longer reports a stone in the shoe or hot water, and nothing gives that back reliably. Stopping progression, easing pain and keeping the foot are achievable: glucose control, foot examination and a well-chosen regimen improve the odds.
Some things do not wait. An ulcer, wound, blister or black patch on the foot; a hot, swollen foot; fever with a leg wound — care where you are, today. If a foot suddenly turns pale, cold and painful — emergency, hours not days.
Why people come
The situations we see most often
If one of these is yours, it is worth establishing the stage and the options.
- Nights worse than days
Burning and shooting pain builds at rest, keeps you awake, eases when you walk.
- You have started to stumble
You hold the wall in the dark, catch the threshold, have fallen — balance went before you noticed.
- The foot stopped reporting
You cannot feel a pebble in your shoe, hot water, a small cut. Worth coming if pain has joined the numbness, or if foot risk has never been assessed.
- The regimen never changed
Prescribed once, dose never raised, class never switched — and the pain stayed.
- You no longer feel glucose falling
Hypoglycaemia stops warning you with tremor and sweating: you learn of it from the meter or from others. One for your endocrinologist — driving included.
- You have read about stem cells
And you want data, not advertising: what the zone permits, and what has been studied here.
Standard care first
What is normally done before anything else
We do not propose replacing proven treatment. On the contrary: without it, any next step loses its meaning.
Standard care comes first — usually the matter is settled there. What should have been done at home:
- Glucose and vascular control is the foundation. Reliable risk reduction in type 1 diabetes, a more modest effect on nerves in type 2. It does not relieve established pain: the regimen is chosen separately, not once HbA1c is at target
- Pace matters as much as target. A fall in HbA1c of more than 2 points in three months can itself provoke acute burning pain; the pace belongs to an endocrinologist, not to the trip date
- Four classes, not one medicine. Gabapentinoids, SNRIs, tricyclic antidepressants, sodium-channel blockers. We name no substances: the choice depends on your kidneys, heart and other medicines
- A realistic goal and timescale. About one third less pain is clinically meaningful, judged after four to eight weeks at the maximum tolerated dose. You do not stop a regimen yourself
- Feet, footwear and balance are your own work. Daily self-examination, toes and sole included; broken-in shoes; callus care by a specialist; balance training. Frequency follows your risk category
If two classes have been titrated to maximum tolerated doses and the pain has stayed, the strongest evidence points not to a flight but to a chronic pain specialist and 10 kHz spinal cord stimulation: FDA-approved for painful diabetic neuropathy, and not available in the cluster. If that route is closed — send us your records.
Where a programme begins
No programme starts without a work-up
Diagnostics come first: they decide whether the method is indicated in your case and to what extent. From here there are two possible next steps.
The regenerative approach
What the cluster additionally considers
On medical grounds — as an addition to standard care, never instead of it.
- Why this does not come together at home
Endocrinologist, neurologist, ophthalmologist, vascular surgeon — separate appointments, and by the time the last report is ready the first is stale. In the cluster it runs back to back over four days: laboratory, feet, leg circulation, fundus, kidneys — one report.
- A second opinion on your regimen
What most people come for. Cluster physicians go through doses, titration, interactions, partial response. Failure means no response at the maximum tolerated dose — then change class, not dose.
- Diagnosis first, method second
It begins not with a procedure but with three things: HbA1c over time, exclusion of non-diabetic causes, and a check that the picture is diabetic at all — often another, treatable disease is behind it.
- Where the line runs
No cellular technology is permitted in the zone for this diagnosis; the permitted one was studied against glucose, not nerves. Cell studies in neuropathy measure conduction, not pain. Told there is no treatment? We will not promise otherwise.
Methods
Which directions may be considered
What suits your case is determined by a physician after diagnostics.
Extended check-up
The backbone of the trip: 17 800 ¥ for one, 24 800 ¥ for two, four days. Neuropathy investigations are ordered by the physician and priced before departure.
Second opinion from cluster physicians
How the review of your regimen and documents works, and what you take away.
Chinese medicine: pain and sleep
Pain and sleep alongside your main therapy; an effect on nerves is not proven. Heat is not applied to a foot without sensation.
Cellular technologies: where the line is
What the zone permits, and why permission for one diagnosis does not carry to another.
Plainly about the limits
When the regenerative route is not for you
This matters more than any marketing: knowing in advance when the method is not considered.
Sometimes our answer is: there is no point in coming. The main ones:
- Everything has already been done at home — regimen titrated, glucose at target, feet examined. The trip would add nothing, and we will say so plainly
- Something acute is happening to the foot — an ulcer, a wound, a hot swollen foot, or the opposite: cold, pale, painful at rest. Care where you are today, not abroad next week
- The picture does not look diabetic — asymmetry, progression over weeks, marked weakness, onset in the hands, weight loss. A neurologist at home first: other diagnoses lie behind this, some treatable
- Causes not excluded, or the diabetes decompensated — B12 deficiency, excess B6 from supplements, alcohol, thyroid, kidneys, chemotherapy, HbA1c far from target. Tests and stabilisation at home first
- Numbness only, with risk already assessed — no pain, feet examined, glucose, weight, blood pressure, lipids, footwear and balance in order. Neither we nor anyone else has anything to add. Never assessed? Different case: that picture is assembled here in four days
- You are not fit to fly — acute infection, a physician's instruction not to travel. Not a question of budget: such limits are not worked around
If a cluster physician says there is no reason to come, we pass that on unchanged. We do not sell a method — we arrange access to a physician's decision. Send your records · Message us on WhatsApp
How it works
From your records to coming home
- 11. You write, we answer plainly
WhatsApp us, or send documents for review. Without them is fine — describe the situation in your own words.
- 22. Preliminary assessment and dates
Dr Yang replies with what is worth examining on site, and whether to come at all — a guide, not a diagnosis. If yes, dates are usually two to three weeks out; the coordinator takes hotel, transfers and appointments.
- 33. Arrival without a consulate
Hainan's visa-free regime, up to 30 days, names medical treatment as a permitted purpose. It works only on a direct flight to the island, no transit through mainland China, and does not cover onward travel into the country; longer stays need a visa. International flights arrive at Sanya (SYX) and Haikou (HAK); the cluster is two hours by road, on the east coast in Qionghai; the coordinator meets you.
- 44. Diagnostics, decision, support
Four days in the cluster, a coordinator beside you: between consulting rooms, interpreting at the appointment. If things get worse — a rub on the foot, dizziness, a glucose spike — an unscheduled appointment is usually the same day.
- 55. Going home
You leave with a written report you can read and follow-up dates: what the complications showed, what to reconsider in pain treatment. Your own doctors take it from there — neither we nor the hospital provide care remotely.
Why here
What the Boao Lecheng cluster offers
- Dr Yang reads your records himself
A partner physician of the cluster: medical degree in Russia, neurology training at the regional hospital in Volgograd. He reads Russian-language reports in the original and says what matters, what is noise.
- Documents you can actually read
Report, prescriptions and follow-up dates come translated: no Chinese forms to decode at home.
- A contract, and you pay the hospital directly
A written contract before departure lists what is included. No mark-up: the hospital invoices you, we take no percentage.
- What this zone is, and who treats you
Boao Lecheng is a pilot zone where medicines and technologies unregistered in the rest of China are legally available. We are not a clinic and do not treat — the cluster's hospitals do.
Common questions
The essentials
Send your scans — and get a straight answer
A specialist physician in the cluster will look at your stage and say whether the regenerative route is worth considering. The review is free; we do not diagnose online.