Spinal Decompression: A Non-Surgical Solution for Sciatica and Other Lower Back Pain

At the onset of sciatica and other lower back pain problems, anti-inflammatory pain relievers can be an effective and reliable solution. For back discomfort that persists, pain medication paired with complementary treatments like chiropractic care, physical therapy, and massage therapy can be even more beneficial.

But no one can turn to medication for round-the-clock relief indefinitely. And when chronic back pain worsens, as it often does, many people contemplate potent epidural steroid injections or even back surgery.

Here at Spine Care of Manassas Chiropractic Center in Manassas, Virginia, we have a better solution: Spinal decompression, a holistic back pain therapy that mechanically stretches your spine to decrease nerve pressure and optimize blood flow to damaged areas.

Read on as Dr. Lincoln German and Dr. Mikaela Foley explain how spinal decompression works to foster deep healing and provide long-lasting pain relief to help improve your range of motion and restore your mobility. 

Relieve pressure and pain naturally

Persistent lower back pain is one of the most common chronic pain conditions in the United States, affecting about 16 million people (or nearly 1 in 10 American adults) at any given time. Whether it stays in your lower back or radiates into your hip and leg (sciatica), its underlying cause is rooted in your spine.

Spinal decompression principle

Spinal decompression uses a motorized, computer-assisted traction table to mechanically stretch and lengthen your spine. Based on the very same chiropractic principles that guide hands-on spinal adjustments, this innovative and gentle therapy approaches your back pain problem with the utmost precision and care. 

Spinal decompression purpose 

Spinal decompression therapy has two fundamental objectives: To relieve spine-related pain and pressure and to foster accelerated healing for degenerating, bulging, slipped, ruptured, or compressed spinal discs.

The science of spinal decompression 

Spinal decompression combines specialized computer software and a fully controllable traction table to help you achieve precision pain relief. 

Before your session, our team inputs key treatment-determinant factors — including your body weight, the nature and severity of your spinal condition, the duration of your symptoms, and your level of sensitivity — into the computer. 

Controlled stretching and relaxation

Next, you lie down on the traction table with your feet toward the motorized portion of the table. Our team fits a harness around your hips that’s attached to the lower end of the table. The upper end of the table remains fixed.

When activated, the low end of the traction table gently slides back and forth, cycling through momentary curved-angle pull forces and periods of intermittent relaxation. When your spine is intermittently stretched and relaxed in a controlled manner, it releases pressure from specific spinal discs and provides immediate pain relief. 

Disc retraction and nutrient flooding

Along with easing pressure on your spinal discs, the treatment’s slow, rhythmic stretching action generates a controlled negative pressure force that gently compels your spinal discs to momentarily contract, much like a reverse vacuum. 

This effect pulls herniated or bulging disc material back into an injured disc, simultaneously triggering an influx of oxygen- and nutrient-rich fluid into the disc. This “tidal wave” of beneficial nutrients fosters a healing environment that supports and accelerates your body’s natural tissue repair cycle. 

Help for your disc-related back pain

As a non-surgical, drug-free treatment that systematically restores degraded or injured spinal discs to a healthy, working order, spinal decompression is an ideal therapy for virtually any back pain or even neck pain condition that involves disc-related pressure. 

At Spine Care of Manassas Chiropractic Center, we can use spinal decompression to treat: 

Bulging or herniated discs

As the primary cause of chronic back pain and radiating sciatic nerve pain, disc problems are the primary treatment domain of spinal decompression. The therapy provides long-term pain relief by creating more space for compressed spinal discs, nudging bulging discs back into place, or fostering the healing and repair of herniated discs.

Degenerative disc disease

Spinal decompression can be a game-changing therapy for people with degenerative disc disease, an age-related wear-and-tear condition that makes moist, supple, and flexible spinal discs become progressively drier, stiffer, and more rigid. Regular spinal decompression sessions can reduce stiffness and discomfort and improve flexibility and range of motion.

Lumbar spinal stenosis

This condition is the progressive structural narrowing of the spinal canal in your lower back. Spinal decompression therapy releases tension throughout your spinal canal, restores space to crowded discs, and relieves chronic lower back pain and leg weakness.

Facet joint syndrome

Usually a product of age-related degeneration, facet joint syndrome affects the flexible joints that link your vertebrae together. It can occur when a joint degrades and compresses a disc or when a degraded disc allows the joints to rub together. Spinal decompression is a gentle way to lengthen compressed spine areas, restore facet joint function, and foster disc healing.

To discover how spinal decompression therapy can help you overcome a back pain problem rooted in disc-related pressure, call or click online to schedule an appointment at Spine Care of Manassas Chiropractic Center today.