I see many patients who have already been to physical therapy, have already tried medications and injections, and are contemplating surgery. Oftentimes, these patients have seen the best specialists who have not bothered to look at their MRI and yet recommend surgery. Whether it is a bulging, herniated, or degenerative disc, seemingly the most common treatment option is surgical intervention. However, as the medical landscape and management of pain has changed, doctors are looking for non-invasive options, more now than ever before. I have met with several surgeons here in Indianapolis who are actively looking for other alternatives to surgery, which is how they find out about nonsurgical spinal decompression. Interestingly enough, the surgeons understand that spine surgery does not necessarily fix the underlying problem. Rather, it decreases the pain, dysfunction, or lack of mobility that a patient is experiencing.
I found out about non-surgical spinal decompression while I was practicing in St. Louis. It sounded great on paper, but I thought it was too good to be true. It wasn’t until I introduced this treatment in my own practice two years later that I saw how powerful it was. Since 1989, the FDA has approved non-surgical spinal decompression as a methodology to treat bulging, herniated, and degenerative discs.
Depending on the severity of the case, patients may undergo a trial of conservative care consisting of 20 to 30 treatments over four months. These treatments are focused on rehydrating the desk. This modern technology allows the target intravertebral disc’s control distraction to move and thus create. A negative pressure. This negative pressure allows for the diffusion of fluid and nutrients to enter the disc which promotes cellular metabolism and healing. Evidence has shown that this negative pressure inside the desk can lead to a retraction of herniated disc material, which takes the pressure off the exiting nerve route that may be contributing to radiating pain. Often, patients who experience radicular symptoms state that they feel numbness, burning, or tingling down their arms or their legs.
the TRX 9000 uses a logarithmic curve, which is a very gentle distracted force on the spine design to bring necessary nutrients into the center of the desk without enlisting a proprioceptive response. This allows for a passive decompression on the spine without causing any spasm of the paraspinal muscles.