How Spinal Decompression Therapy Works

By Diane Kroner

Spinal decompression therapy is a back and neck pain problem treatment which aims at gently forcing displaced vertebral disk material back into the disk.

Spinal decompression therapy basically works out of the understanding that it is the displacement of the vertebral disk material into the space that is supposed to be occupied by nerves that cause the severe back and neck pain which is treated with spinal decompression therapy. When such vertebral disk material falls into the space that is occupied by these sensitive nerves, it naturally puts the rather sensitive nerves under pressure naturally leading to that unbearable pain.

And contrary to what the name might suggest, spinal decompression therapy does not normally involve any surgical operation.

The idea in spinal decompression therapy is to gently force the displaced vertebral disk material back to where it is supposed to be (inside the vertebral disk). Now this is achieved by creating a pressure differential between the disk and its surroundings, with the space inside the disk at a lower pressure than its surroundings. This is done out of the basic physics principle that if you can create a pressure differential between two neighboring regions, you can have objects in the region at higher pressure pulled into the region at lower pressure. And this is just what happens in spinal decompression therapy, where the out of place vertebral disk material find itself in a region of higher pressure (since a region of lower pressure has been created inside the disk), which causes it fall back into the disk where it is supposed to be, and which is at a lower pressure in this case.

Once the vertebral disk that had fallen out of place finds its way back into the disk, the nerves that were under constant pressure/stimulation are relieved of the load " leading to sustainable relief for the patient.

About twenty individual spinal decompression therapy sessions are usually required before the treatment can be termed as complete. This is because the vertebrate disk material being nudged back into the disk is sensitive as is the disk itself, mean that the therapy has to be gradual and gentle.

Cost-wise, each of the individual spinal disk decompression therapy sessions costs between about a hundred dollars and two hundred dollars, meaning that about two thousand to four thousand dollars are expended before spinal decompression therapy can be declared complete. And while this is not a very small amount of money, it often turns out to be much lower than what surgical treatment for the same condition would cost, not to say anything about the risks, and the recuperation period that would be required for surgical treatment for the same condition. - 30453

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