What is spinal decompression?
Spinal decompression describes different types of treatment that can offer back pain relief by taking pressure off the neural elements of your spine.
Why do people have spinal decompression therapy?
Your spine (backbone) provides support for your body. It consists of bones called vertebrae, with ligaments and spinal disks that keep it flexible. Your spinal column provides a nerve pathway that runs down the middle of these bones, ligaments and disks.
Spine injuries or degeneration (wear and tear) to your spine can cause pain. You might feel pain from compression in your spine that puts pressure on your spinal cord or nerves. Spinal decompression seeks to relieve the pressure to ease the pain.
What conditions can spinal decompression treat?
Some common reasons you might seek spinal decompression treatment include:
- Bulging disks, when a cushion between vertebrae bulges out.
- Degenerative disks, when the cushion between vertebrae starts wearing out.
- Herniated disks are when part of a disk pushes on a nerve.
- Pinched nerves, when a nerve gets pinched (compressed), causing numbness, pain, or tingling.
- Sciatica, damage to your sciatic nerve.
- Spinal stenosis, the narrowing of spaces in your spine due to bone spurs or bulging, or herniated disks.
