Patients dealing with neuropathy tend to hear the same two sentences over and over: there's nothing more we can do, and you'll just have to live with it. Dr. J, a chiropractor and founder of South Bay Wellness Center in the San Jose area, spent this conversation with Mark Anthony explaining why he disagrees — and why, after 13 years focused specifically on neuropathy, he's watched patients who arrived in wheelchairs eventually drive themselves back into his office.
Dr. J graduated from chiropractic school in 1993, spent two years at a multidisciplinary clinic, and opened his own practice in 1995 — more than 50,000 patients ago, by his own count. His approach to care shifted after his own health crisis: in 2013 he was diagnosed with a rare form of spinal cancer, one he says affects a very small number of people worldwide, and underwent aggressive surgery that left him with severe muscle atrophy requiring round-the-clock care. He was told he might not practice again. Instead, through water therapy, weightlifting, and the same rehabilitation principles he now teaches patients, he was back to full-time practice within about a year — and says the experience is what pushed him to focus so heavily on helping the body heal tissue that conventional medicine had written off.
Key Takeaways
- Peripheral neuropathy — nerve damage in the hands and feet — affects an estimated 20 million Americans and has more than 200 possible causes, from diabetes to chemotherapy side effects to long COVID.
- Dr. J's clinic uses two primary tools, infrared light therapy and a nerve-stimulation device called the ReBuilder, alongside targeted nutrition, and says many patients see measurable sensory improvement within one to three months.
- He draws a hard line between true peripheral neuropathy (nerve damage in the extremities) and radiculopathy (nerve-related symptoms originating from a spinal disc injury) — the latter, he says, may not respond to this treatment approach.
- His own recovery from a rare spinal cancer diagnosis and surgery in 2013 — including a return to full-time practice within about a year despite severe muscle atrophy — shaped how he approaches patient care.
- Dr. J recommends coordinating any change in neuropathy medication, including tapering off gabapentin, with the prescribing physician rather than stopping abruptly.
What Neuropathy Really Is — and Why Diagnosis Comes First
Dr. J described neuropathy simply as nerve cell death: when a nerve loses its blood and oxygen supply, it dies, and the sensation it once carried goes with it. He said there are roughly 200 different reasons this can happen — diabetic neuropathy, side effects of certain medications, chemotherapy, and, more recently, long COVID among them — plus a category doctors label idiopathic neuropathy, where no clear cause is ever identified.
The form he treats most often is peripheral neuropathy, nerve damage in the feet or hands, which he said is especially common among diabetic patients. Symptoms include tingling, numbness, burning, and — as some patients have described it to him — an odd sensation like walking on broken glass. As balance deteriorates, falls and fractures become more likely, and in severe diabetic cases, he said, it can progress to gangrene and amputation.
He was careful to separate peripheral neuropathy from radiculopathy — nerve-related symptoms that actually originate from a disc injury in the neck or lower back rather than damage in the extremities themselves. Before treating anyone, his office tests the joints above and below the area of complaint specifically to rule that distinction in or out, because a patient who has radiculopathy rather than true peripheral neuropathy may not respond to the therapies his clinic offers. He said close to 20 million Americans deal with peripheral neuropathy symptoms.
"If you give up on yourself, it seems like the world gives up on you. You have to be proactive — you have to find a way."
— Dr. J, South Bay Wellness CenterTwo Patient Stories From the Episode
Dr. J shared two cases he described as staying with him. The first was a woman who had suffered several falls and could no longer walk safely — to the point that her husband had to stay home from work to care for her. Within a month of starting treatment she stopped using a walker; within three months she was driving herself to his office. He recalled her husband later telling him that the treatment hadn't just helped her — it had given him his own freedom back, since he no longer needed to stay home as her caretaker.
The second was a military veteran who went on to serve 25 years as a police officer. By the time he came to Dr. J's office, he had lost feeling in his legs, had become depressed, and — in Dr. J's telling — had reached the point of drinking heavily and having thoughts of suicide. About two and a half months into treatment, the man told Dr. J he was building a second home behind his house in the Santa Cruz Mountains for his son. Dr. J was careful to frame these as individual outcomes, not guarantees, and noted that patients with spinal-cord-based nerve damage, rather than peripheral neuropathy, are less likely to see the same kind of response.
Inside the Treatment — and Why Dr. J Is Wary of Gabapentin Alone
Dr. J is part of a network of roughly 340 doctors nationwide who use a similar neuropathy protocol, built around two main modalities. The first is infrared light therapy, meant to increase blood supply to nerve cells. The second is a device called the ReBuilder, which he said research has shown stimulates and helps "wake up" damaged nerve cells. Both are paired with nutrition support — he mentioned B-complex vitamins and anti-inflammatory guidance — and, in some cases, adjunct therapies like cold laser and a vibration panel. Patients are typically sent home with equipment to repeat the therapy twice a day, seven days a week, for the first month or two, and are retested each time they return to the office to track progress.
A first visit, as he described it, starts with a comprehensive evaluation: seven-point nerve testing for light touch, heat, and vibration sensation, a scan of nerve flow to the extremities, a digital X-ray if warranted, and sometimes a short trial run on the ReBuilder itself so patients can feel how it works before committing to a course of care. At the time of the interview, Dr. J mentioned pricing that initial evaluation in the neighborhood of $49, with payment plans available — though he noted patients should confirm current pricing directly with the practice, since it's a private, cash-based clinic. He also said his office offers telehealth consultations, and that because patients take equipment home, some travel up to 100 miles for periodic in-person visits rather than needing to come in constantly.
Dr. J was direct that he doesn't prescribe or recommend medication, and doesn't tell patients to stop taking it either. But he said the overwhelming majority of neuropathy patients who walk into his office have already been placed on gabapentin, often at escalating doses — he described patients going from roughly 300 milligrams a day up toward 2,500 milligrams a day without necessarily feeling meaningful relief, and some reporting they simply feel "foggy." Because sudden discontinuation of gabapentin can cause seizures, his consistent advice is that any tapering happen gradually and in coordination with whichever physician prescribed it — only as a patient's own symptoms and function actually improve. More broadly, he argued that the health system too often reaches for medication before fully diagnosing the root cause of a patient's symptoms, at one point citing his own read of surgical data to claim that a large share of surgeries performed in the U.S., in his view, aren't strictly necessary — a claim he offered as his personal opinion from years in practice rather than a specific published source.
Who This Conversation Is For
Dr. J's advice to anyone in pain and losing hope was straightforward: get an accurate diagnosis, give a conservative course of care four to five months to show a real difference, and don't wait passively for the healthcare system to circle back with a better answer. He was candid that his own path here started not as a doctor but as a patient — describing nights in a hospital wheelchair after his 2013 surgery, unable to sleep, determined to find his own way back. That same philosophy, he said, is one he's now passing down to his son, who is finishing a degree at San Diego State and headed toward chiropractic school himself. If you or someone you know has been told neuropathy is simply something to live with, this episode is a useful, plainly explained second opinion from someone who has been on both sides of that conversation.
