Here is the picture: You were minding your own business, carrying on about your everyday duties (lifting, bending, and stooping) or having fun and playing hard in recreational sports. Then it happened! You experienced pain in lower back and now it is radiating down into your leg. Or maybe you have been in a car accident and now suffer neck and/or arm pain. Your have tried a long list of treatments including: prescription drugs from your family practitioner, specific exercises from your physical therapist, chiropractic adjustments, and epidural spinal steroid injections for the herniated disc in the lower back or neck. Still there is no lasting relief of your pain.
Now your list of possible treatment options has narrowed. Doctors say you need spinal surgery, but that is scary and that will be your last resort. Disc decompression therapy, more commonly known as Spinal Decompression (non-surgical), is the best non-surgical treatment option left. Here is what you know: disc decompression therapy is 1) extremely safe, 2) likely effective to give you relief of lower back and leg pain or neck and arm pain, 3) FDA cleared, 4) affordable, and 5) and is your last non-surgical approach to resolve the problem and get back to the life you have been missing. So how can I improve my results with Spinal Decompression?
The most common and detrimental mistake patients make during Spinal Decompression treatment is continuing with compressive activities of the neck and especially the lower back. Spinal Decompression applies a negative pressure to the disc and an intermittent pumping effect of Spinal decompression causes the dehydrated and brittle disc to re-hydrate with nutrient rich fluid allowing the disc to repair and enliven again. The intermittent traction stimulates disc cells, called fibroblasts, to rebuild the cartilage of the disc which is necessary to hold the thick and sticky liquid of the nucleus in place. When being treated with Spinal Decompression think about the tiny cartilage cells growing and trying to knit together. Placing the disc under more pressure can allow the new tissue to tear repeatedly postponing repair and treatment success.
It is best to AVOID COMPRESSIVE activities: 1. Sitting for long periods - driving long distances, long airline flights, or enjoying a movie without getting up. 2. Standing for long periods - especially on concrete or other hard surfaces. 3. Carrying heavy or awkward items. 4. Avoid lifting, but if you must use proper lifting technique. 5. Put recreational activities on hold except for walking short distances that do not cause pain. Especially avoid weight lifting and high impact exercises of any type.
Know your positional preference. If you are treated face up more than likely extension (bending backwards) will make you worse. If you are treated face down then bending forward will probably aggravate your condition. Be patient and alert to any activity that causes your pain to worsen. If and when you return to exercises make sure you use proper form and do not exercise in a direction that opposes your treatment's positional preference.
Remember the disc can rebuild and repair quickly with proper treatment. Spinal decompression treat does not last forever. So be patient, avoid compressive activities, and return to exercise only by your doctors direction and guidance. Otherwise, you have a great recipe for treatment failure, increased cost, greater levels of pain, and make yourself more susceptible to more invasive and costly treatments.
