At East Loop Chiropractic, we will help you
with posture and spinal screenings that can help reveal important information regarding your health. Our professionals will help you to use this information to improve your health and well-being.
Let us help you live the pain-free life you deserve. Call us today to schedule an appointment and see how our professionals can help you treat your chronic pain without the need for painful surgery.
Unlike laminectomy and microdiscectomy, spinal decompression therapy is a nonsurgical decompression procedure. During this therapy, the chiropractor gently stretches your spine, using a traction table or similar motorized device. The objective of this therapy is to alleviate back pain or leg pain.
Theory of Spinal Decompression
Devices for spinal decompression use the same basic principle of spinal traction offered by chiropractors, osteopaths, and other highly trained healthcare professionals. Traction and decompression therapies are applied to not only relieve pain, but also to promote an optimal healing environment for your bulging, degenerating, or herniated discs.
Some Theoretical Benefits of Spinal Decompression Therapy:
- This therapy creates a negative intradiscal pressure to promote retraction or repositioning of the herniated or bulging disc material
- Spinal Decompression Therapy creates a lower pressure in the disc that will cause an influx of healing nutrients and other substances into the disc
Clinical Evidence
The fundamental theory of spinal decompression is widely accepted as valid. However, there is a lack of evidence supporting decompression therapy as being an effective technique. Also, this therapy has some potential risks.
Albeit a few studies that do exclude control groups found that decompression treatment is effective, others feel that spinal decompression is no better than sham decompression [Schimmel JJ, et al. European Spine Journal 18(12):1843-50, 2009].
Therefore, there is inadequate proof that spinal decompression treatment is as successful or effective than affordable manual techniques of treating back pain or injured herniated discs.
Medical literature indicates that most clinical trials analyzing the effectiveness of spinal decompression therapy or traction were deficient in at least one area or more area, such as inadequate numbers of subjects to make a statistically valid conclusion, lack of blinding (the patient or provider is unaware of the treatment given), no comparison to a placebo group (called a sham-controlled study), or lack of comparison to a treatment alternative.
There are only a few clinical studies of spinal decompression therapy that have been published till date.