ADVERTISING: Advertorial — Consider this before spinal surgery

It’s a position no one wants to be in. You have sharp, debilitating pain. This is not your standard muscle tightness. This pain is generated from a nerve. You’re getting electric shocks, pins and needles, and numbness or burning sensations in your back or even into your arms and legs. It’s gotten to the point where it’s controlling your every movement. You can hardly make it through your day, let alone go for a walk or play with your kids/grandkids. Frustrated, you call your doctor. After a whole bunch of testing, it shows that you have nerve impingement due a disc herniation/degeneration or spinal stenosis.

So now what? At this point, most doctors are going to give you different treatment options; pain medication, prescribe physical therapy, get injections, or spinal surgery to decompress your nerves, depending on the severity of the situation. With today’s increasingly sedentary lifestyles, as well as living longer, rates of chronic back pain have continued to rise. So has the number of spinal surgeries.

Due to the poor success rate and high incidence of complications for spine surgery, non-surgical spinal decompression was invented. It all began with Canada’s former minister of health and former medical researcher Dr. Allan Dyer MD, Ph.D., already recognized as a pioneer in the development of the external cardiac defibrillator, designed and developed this new technology to be vastly different from traction devices. Combining his understanding of physiology with basic principles of physics, Dr. Dyer realized that applying a sufficient axial load to the spine would create a vacuum within the disc and that in return could reduce the protrusion of a herniated disc.

Non-surgical spinal decompression therapy is achieved by using a FDA-cleared, computerized table that gently stretches the spine relieving pressure on disc, joints and the connective tissue. Unlike traction devices, spinal decompression tables are able to detect your muscles’ resistance and are able to adjust to that resistance so that your body relaxes. What is amazing, the spinal decompression table is able to do this with little to no discomfort to the patient. This is because of the table’s ability to comfortably remove the pressure on discs so they can heal. The key to non-surgical decompression therapy is the controlled, slow stretching. This creates a vacuum within the disc that naturally pulls the bulging disc material back into place, while forcing fluids and nutrients into the disc. This action reduces pain and allows the disc to heal.

I get asked a lot if decompression is the same as an inversion table or traction. The answer is no, non-surgical decompression tables are not the same as inversion or traction units. With inversion, the traction force is generated by your weight and the only control over that force is the angle you hang at. The force is constant unless you change the angle. With a spinal decompression, there is a controlled force. The application of pressure, the maximum and minimum levels of force used and length of time that the pressure is applied is all controlled by the table’s computer. The pattern of changing pressure produces a pumping action that creates a vacuum that naturally draws bulging disc material back into place, reducing pain and allowing the disc to heal. As an added bonus, it improves circulation. This is particularly important where disc conditions are concerned since discs do not have a direct blood supply. So the nutrients the disc needs to heal are forced into the disc along with water to help rehydrate the disc.

So to review, nonsurgical spinal decompression therapy is used to reduce compression and irritation to nerves caused by disc and joint disorders. For many patients it offers a safe, narcotic free, and non-surgical solution to chronic spinal conditions.

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Dr. Wayne M. Fichter Jr. is a chiropractor at Natural Spine Solutions. The business is located at 3913 Schreiber Way in Coeur d’Alene. For more information, please contact us at 208-966-4425.