Something Wonderful for Back Pain Sufferers

Every once in a while something really great comes along in the healing arts that upgrades an entire field of therapy. This something has entered the field of spinal disc care and brings realistic hope where there was little before. Spinal discs are the soft tissue pads that sit between the spinal vertebrae and allow the spine to move and flex. They are subject to rupture, bulging and degeneration, something which nearly all of us are subject to at some time in our lives. Even if you do not directly experience disc injury, aging will eventually get you as the discs slowly dehydrate, loose height and your spine stiffens.

Until now individuals with various disc problems have been a neglected aspect of health care, lagging in technology to offer real help. The medical field has not developed meaningful treatment, except for last stage therapy, in the form of surgery. And even there the main option has been spinal fusion, which creates further problems – loss of flexibility and the almost inevitable development of disc degeneration at the sites above and below the fusion. Recent surgical developments for artificial discs to maintain flexibility are still too new to evaluate effectiveness.

The chiropractic and osteopathic fields offer a treatment called flexion traction, which is related to, but not nearly as effective as this new development. However, it is also much less expensive, so we offer this in our clinic also. This therapy involves a table that flexes in the middle allowing the patient to be strapped in and tractioned as the table is flexed. Many disc problems have been healed with this technology, but the problem with all types of traction is the muscular system will contract during traction to ‘protect’ the spine, buffering much of the benefit of the traction. Secondly, in severe disc problems flexion traction is not feasible, as it is too painful due to muscular spasm.

The new wonder treatment to which I am referring is spinal decompression. While appearing superficially similar to traction, it is not. The main difference is that decompression is traction modulated by a computer. The computer monitors any attempt of spinal muscles to contract and releases the traction until the muscles relax. The decompression is then resumed. The amazing thing is that this occurs every 17th of a second, so fast that your brain and reflexes do not know it is happening. You cannot fight the machine, it is simply faster than you are. The result is that the patient is pulled apart like taffy. It is profoundly relaxing. Most patients feel like they are being sucked into a profound sleep. In fact, many suffering disc patients on this machine will report this is the only time they are out of pain and can sleep.

Treatment by spinal decompression is not just symptomatic. It actually pulls the disc apart, re-hydrates it, sucks the nuclear material back into the center of the disc, and stimulates the production of new disc fibers to make the changes permanent. Patients will end up with a ‘younger disc’, like it was 20 years ago. Nerve pains and spinal stiffness will go away.

How effective is it? A study reported in the Orthopedic Technology Review, Nov/Dec 2003 by Thomas Gionas MD and Eric Groteke DC using 229 people with major symptoms associated with herniated and degenerated disc disease underwent 20 decompression treatments over a 6 week period. In 86% of the patients the pain levels were reduced to either a rating of 0 (no pain), or 1 (occasional pain). These patients reported complete resolution of pain, lumbar ranged of motion was normalized, and there was recovery of any sensory or motor loss. After 90 days only 2% had relapsed. Of the patients with abnormal findings at the end of therapy, only 3 % still exhibited those findings at the end of 90 days, showing they continued to improve following the decompression therapy.

There are a number of makers spinal decompression machines, and many that call themselves decompression that are really traction. Beware! For our office we chose the DRX 9000 C because it also decompresses the cervical spine, has superior craftsmanship, and has a patient friendly design. If you are in pain this can matter. The results we have been seeing have exceeded our expectation and allow us to help patients who had been too seriously injured to receive chiropractic care before and were surgical candidates. Tell your friends with serious back problems help is here.

You can learn more about this therapy by going to our websites at DRXstopbackpain.com or sufferfree.com. You will be glad you did. Feel free to contact us if you have any questions or wish to consider this therapy. Our phone number is (949) 574-9239.

Robert Janda, MA, DC