People suffering from back pain and/or sciatica related to a bulging or degenerated spinal disc often have difficulty getting lasting relief, and they may be left with considering the options of spinal decompression or back surgery. While each has it’s benefits and drawbacks, different factors in different cases will ultimately determine the best treatment option.
Unfortunately, there are several misconceptions concerning both spinal decompression and back surgery that can make it very difficult for one to choose a treatment approach, particularly when one’s judgement may be clouded by pain and/or pain medication. The purpose of this article is to attempt to cut through some of the myths and misconceptions concerning these forms of disc treatment to assist disc pain sufferers in making an informed decision as to the form of treatment to pursue.
Although spinal decompression is a kind of traction, the effects of spinal decompression vary considerably from those of regular traction. True spinal decompression systems utilize computer controlled motors that can “fool” the muscles along the spine into staying relaxed during the treatment session. This allows for a suction effect inside the spinal disc being treated, which pulls bulging disc material back into the disc and also pulls in fluid and nutrients that help the disc to recover and heal. Since ordinary traction machines must contend with muscular resistance, their effects on the discs are much less and traction typically does not provide long-term improvements in disc health, nor lasting elimination of pain.
While spinal decompression is highly successful in treating most cases of disc-related pain, it is not 100% effective and there are situations in which it is contraindicated. In my San Antonio Spinal Decompression practice, it has been my experience that it is usually not very effective when a patient has a severe disc extrusion, or a full rupture of the disc, rather than just bulging. Spinal decompression is not safe to use when the patient has spinal instability in the are of the damaged disc. In cases where spinal decompression is unlikely to be effective and/or is contraindicated, surgery becomes the only real option for achieving good lasting results.
Although it may be the best option in a small number of disc-pain cases, back surgery is far from being an ideal solution. Patients sometimes have the impression that a back surgery will completely solve their back pain once and for all, but this is rarely the case. Statistics have shown that a prior back surgery is one of the most telling predictors of whether a person will need back surgery in the future. Even though an aggressive back surgery to remove a damaged disc will ensure that the removed disc will never cause a problem again, such a surgery will typically create future problems that can be as bad or worse than the initial disc problem.
Abnormal wear and tear on adjacent discs due to altered biomechanics from the surgery and/or post-surgical scar tissue formation developing months to years after disc surgey can produce new areas of nerve and//or spinal cord compression and irritation. Due to the high probability of these post-surgical complications, it is my opinion that surgery should always be considered a last option when all other treatments have either failed or cannot be used due to existing contraindications.
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