Neuropathy often starts quietly — a little tingling, some numbness after a long day — which is exactly why Mark Anthony opened this episode of Great Minds of Today by naming the real danger: not the condition itself, but the delay. Left unaddressed long enough, nerve damage can progress from an inconvenience to a hospitalization, and in the most severe cases, amputation. His guest, Dr. Cameron Rowe, DC, has spent the past nine years focused specifically on neuropathy treatment, completing masterclass-level certification training in alternative approaches to the condition and receiving recognition Mark Anthony described on the show as a prestigious neuropathy treatment award.
The mistake Dr. Rowe sees most often isn't a wrong diagnosis — it's no diagnosis at all, because symptoms get dismissed for months or years before anyone investigates them. The conversation walked through exactly what his office looks for, why one early sign catches even attentive patients off guard, and what a real course of treatment looks like once neuropathy is confirmed.
Key Takeaways
- Neuropathy typically begins in the feet, so Dr. Rowe's office starts with a detailed history plus objective sensory testing — checking light touch, temperature, vibration, and reflexes like the Achilles tendon reflex — using what's called the Toronto Clinical Scoring System.
- Early symptoms are usually bilateral and symmetrical: burning, pins-and-needles, and unexplained sensitivity to socks or bedsheets at night. As it progresses, patients often describe numbness as "walking on balloons."
- One sign Dr. Rowe said patients rarely expect: unexplained chronic itching with no underlying skin condition, which he's traced back to neuropathy in more than one case.
- Diabetes, pre-diabetes, and hypoglycemia account for most of his caseload, but he's also seeing more chemotherapy-induced peripheral neuropathy, post-COVID systemic polyneuropathy, and idiopathic cases with no identifiable cause.
- His approach combines dietary changes, in-office electroanalgesia and light therapy, alpha lipoic acid supplementation, and an at-home device called the ReBuilder — with consistent use over several months, not a single visit, correlating with the biggest improvements he's seen.
How Dr. Rowe's Office Identifies Neuropathy Early
Dr. Rowe said everything starts with a thorough history — prior diagnoses, current and past medications — because that alone gives a strong clue about who's at elevated risk for early-onset neuropathy. From there, his office runs a full sensory evaluation:
- Light touch, temperature sensation (hot and cold), vibration, and painful stimuli, checked at multiple points on the body
- All major reflexes, since neuropathy typically shows up first in the feet as a decrease in the Achilles tendon reflex
- Comparative testing — a patient might feel a temperature stimulus clearly on the forehead but far less, or not at all, on the feet
Combined, these make up what's called the Toronto Clinical Scoring System — an objective, non-painful test Dr. Rowe uses in-office to identify which stage of neuropathy a patient is in before symptoms become severe.
Symptoms That Are Easy to Write Off
Dr. Rowe drew a clear distinction that helps separate neuropathy from other nerve issues: it's typically bilateral and symmetrical, affecting both feet evenly, where something like a pinched nerve tends to show up on one side only. Early on, that tends to show up as pain with no obvious cause, pins-and-needles, burning, and a heightened sensitivity to things that shouldn't hurt — a pair of socks, a bedsheet at night. As the condition progresses, numbness becomes more common. Patients describe it in strikingly similar terms: "I feel like I'm walking on balloons... I can feel the pressure of my foot touching the floor, but I can't feel the carpet. I can't feel the tile. I can't feel the cold on the floor."
The sign that surprised Mark Anthony most was one Dr. Rowe said took him time to connect: chronic, unexplained itching, with no rash, no psoriasis, nothing wrong with the skin itself. He's seen it in more than one patient. "That one took me a while to figure out," he said, "we're dealing with a neuropathy, not some kind of skin condition or allergy."
Why More People Are Developing Neuropathy
Asked whether he's seeing more cases or fewer, Dr. Rowe didn't hesitate: "it's increased drastically." The majority of his patients are diabetic, pre-diabetic, or hypoglycemic, and he pointed to diet as a major driver — but diabetes isn't the whole picture. He's also seeing more chemotherapy-induced peripheral neuropathy as cancer treatment becomes more common, systemic polyneuropathy following COVID-19 ("I've seen several of those since the pandemic"), and idiopathic cases — where no medication, chemotherapy, COVID history, or diabetes diagnosis explains the nerve damage at all.
Inside the Treatment: Diet, Electroanalgesia, and the ReBuilder
Nutrition is where Dr. Rowe starts. He has patients cut added sugar, increase water intake, move away from soda, and eat fewer processed foods in favor of more meat, vegetables, and some fruit — with a goal of bringing A1C down for patients who are diabetic or pre-diabetic. Alpha lipoic acid, an antioxidant found in green leafy vegetables, meat, and fruit, is a supplement he uses regularly, dosed to the patient's stage of neuropathy.
A first visit runs about an hour for a full consult and evaluation, with the electrical treatment itself taking 20 to 25 minutes alongside infrared or laser light therapy — all aimed at increasing blood flow to the extremities. Dr. Rowe contrasted his in-office electroanalgesia with a standard TENS unit: where a TENS unit tops out around 250 pulses per second, the device he uses reaches up to 10,000 pulses per second, producing a vasodilation effect he described as central to his entire approach to treatment.
"Combating neuropathy is all about getting blood flow into the extremities. That is what's going to bring water, oxygen, and nutrients to those nerves to keep them from continuing to wither away."
— Dr. Cameron Rowe, DCIn the office, Dr. Rowe also uses a system called matrix therapy, which pairs the same electroanalgesia with a vacuum-style component that pulls blood into the feet, hands, or calves through suction cups placed at the treatment site. For ongoing home use — his preferred option once neuropathy has progressed to stage two or beyond — he sends patients home with a device called the ReBuilder. Built, he said, around the idea that the nervous system runs on a 7.83 hertz frequency, the ReBuilder delivers electrical impulses through electrodes placed in a water bath under the feet, running a 30-minute session that shuts off automatically. Patients with more advanced neuropathy use it up to twice a day at home, which he prefers over patients making three office visits a week.
On results, Dr. Rowe was specific rather than promotional: patients who'd lost 90 to 95% of sensation in a leg or foot and stayed consistent with treatment for three to six months have, in his experience, seen improvements of as much as 80%. For diabetic foot ulcers specifically, he referenced published research showing some patients who were otherwise facing amputation resolved the ulcer using the matrix therapy approach. Insurance coverage for the take-home equipment is inconsistent — some plans cover it, some don't — and when it isn't covered, his office works out payment arrangements directly with patients. He's also treated patients living out of state after an initial in-person evaluation, sending equipment home for them to use remotely, though he noted the out-of-pocket cost tends to be higher in that scenario.
The episode closed on a blunt note. Dr. Rowe recounted a conversation with a friend who's an orthopedic foot and ankle surgeon, who describes his own approach as "I medicate until I amputate" — prescribing drugs like gabapentin that mask nerve pain without addressing what's causing it. Dr. Rowe's contrast was direct: medication can quiet symptoms for a while, but it doesn't reverse nerve damage, which is the case he was making for catching neuropathy — and treating its cause — early.
This conversation is aimed at anyone dealing with unexplained foot or hand symptoms, or anyone with a family member managing diabetes, undergoing chemotherapy, or recovering from COVID-19 — the three drivers Dr. Rowe named most often. The full episode goes deeper into the sensory testing and device demonstrations described above.
