What is spinal decompression?

Spinal decompression is a treatment described differently but can relieve back pain by removing pressure exerted on neural elements in the spine.

Why do people have spinal decompression therapy?

The spine carries the rest of the body. The bones are known as vertebrae while the ligaments, together with spinal disks, allow for flexibility. Your spinal column provides a pathway down the middle of those bones, ligaments, and disks for nerves to run.

Pain may result from spinal injuries or degeneration (wear and tear). When the spine becomes compressed, pressure is applied to the spinal cord and nerves, causing discomfort. TSpinal decompression aims to release pressure to reduce pain.

What are the kinds of spinal decompression therapies?

Some types of back pain can be treated without a healthcare provider's help. Acute (sudden) back pain usually goes away within a few days or weeks. Relief can be achieved by taking over-the-counter pain relievers or muscle relaxants as your body heals. Applying heat and cold compresses also may help.

Additional treatment options are available for long-term or chronic back pain. In most cases, patients use non-surgical treatment techniques. If home-based therapies do not work, the provider may recommend surgical intervention.

What is the treatment for spinal decompression?

You may seek spinal decompression therapy for the following frequent reasons:

• Bulging disks occur when the space between the vertebrae expands.
• When a nerve is compressed, degenerative disks result in tingling.
• Injury to the sciatic nerve, often known as sciatica.
• A bulging or ruptured disk or a bone spur causing the spinal spaces to narrow is called spinal stenosis.

What other types of spinal decompression treatment are available?

Other alternatives include complementary medicine, which relieves pain without surgery. You might want to look into

• Acupuncture: A physician drives thin acupuncture needles through the skin at different points on your body to help relieve pain.
• Chiropractic care: Spinal adjustments using chiropractic care align your bones with easing the pain—physical therapy. You work with a therapist who can instruct you on stretches, better ways to lift things, and exercises to relieve your pain.
• Traction: Your doctor uses pulleys, weights, and a traction table to stretch your back. Your doctor can also use an inversion table. Inversion therapy is one of the types of traction in which you sit upside down with gravity. Here, you lie on a table that tilts and creates an angle to relieve pressure on your spine.
• Nerve stimulation: TENS uses tiny electrical charges from a device. The charges relax muscles and make nerves stop hurting.

What tests determine the severity of the injury?

Your doctor may require some tests to establish the severity of your injury. The tests could be any of the following.

• Bone scans: A bone scan is an imaging test that detects the presence of fractures, cancer, or infections in your bones. Your healthcare provider orders the bone scan to identify the cause of your back pain.
• Diskography: A special dye that, for X-rays and other scans, is visible is injected into your back. Then, a computed tomography scan takes pictures. Diskography can demonstrate any damage to your disk.
• Electrical tests: Electromyography is prescribed to you by your doctor. This test measures the electrical activity of your nerves and your muscles. It determines how fast electrical signals are sent through your nerve to your brain by performing an evoked potential study. Your doctor, in turn, utilizes nerve conduction studies in order to assess the proper functioning of your nerves.
• Diagnostic imaging: The physician uses diagnostic imaging to capture images inside the body. Those images can point out the cause of pain. Specialized imaging includes CT scans, magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), and X-rays.

What are spinal decompression surgeries?

Healthcare providers may prescribe surgery if other therapies do not help. However, not all spinal decompression surgeries use minimally invasive techniques.Find out from your doctor if you're a good candidate for a minimally invasive procedure.

For spinal compression surgery, you may have the following options:

• A surgeon performs a corpectomy to remove a disc or vertebra. A spinal fusion, which joins two bones, may be performed by your surgeon to stabilize your spine.
• Discectomy relieves pressure on a nerve by having your surgeon remove a portion of a disc.
• By removing bone or other tissue, your surgeon can enlarge the openings for your nerve roots through a foraminotomy or foraminectomy. Creating space for your nerves to exit your spinal canal provides pain relief.
• Laminotomy or laminectomy: The surgeon will take a piece or total thickness of the bony arches surrounding the spinal canal. Removing these bone pieces opens up your spinal canal and provides some relief.
• Osteophyte removal: Osteophytes are bone outgrowths that occur as people age. Removing them can relieve some pressure.

The patient may be allowed to stay in the hospital for up to five days following surgery. Complete recovery will take several months, depending on the kind of surgery. Spinal decompression often enables a patient to regain movement, strength, and nerve sensation through physical therapy.

How do you select a spinal decompression procedure?

Deciding which course of treatment would be most beneficial to you is strictly on a case-by-case basis. Your health care professional will make a suggestion according to your complete health history and the severity of the injury.

Health care professionals generally like the "stepped" approach. They often begin with less invasive and potentially more cost-effective treatments to see how the injury will be. If those do not work, then surgery may become part of the level of care needed.

How safe is spinal decompression?

Medication can cause allergies, and alternative treatments may not be effective. Surgical techniques can also provoke infections, bleeding, blood clots, or damage to nerves or tissue. Your doctor will provide you with the choices and considerations.

How is spinal decompression beneficial?

Proper treatment could solve issues that are causing back pain. A stepped approach will allow your healthcare provider to find an option best suited for your case while minimizing the risk. Treatment can get you back to work, school, or play.

What type of success does spinal decompression have?

In many cases, surgical intervention is very effective in providing relief of pain. However, surgery will not reverse all the degenerative changes. You can have a recurrence of symptoms.

Patients who received surgery had more significant improvement than those who received non-surgical care, according to studies of surgical treatment for spinal stenosis.

Talk about your own specific needs and prognosis with your doctor.

When to call doctor?

If the pain relievers, rest, heat, and cold packs fail to help your back ache, you should see a healthcare provider. If your back pain treatment fails to yield satisfactory results, you should discuss this issue with your healthcare provider. You may have to try another kind of spinal decompression treatment.

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