Spinal Decompression In Phoenix, Arizona
Painful acute lower back pain can be successfully managed to reduce the severity of the first few days. In this article a few early interventions will be discussed to help manage the early pain, however a long term treatment program must be followed to ensure the pain doesn’t return.
Keep bed rest to a minimum, 3 days max and less if you can. The faster you get back to movement the better. Muscle wasting occurs rapidly with bed rest.
Early movement is key and should be initiated as soon as possible. The sooner you can begin moving again the quicker you will heal.
Ice is a good treatment in the early stages of an injury, however be sure to apply it for 20 minutes at a time only and use a cloth between your skin and the ice. You can also try compressed heat as another alternative.
Unresolved back pain that doesn’t go away after a few weeks can be the sign of a more serious condition such as a herniated or bulging disc. At this point an MRI is usually indicated if the clinic findings support it.
So what is a herniated bulging or degenerative disc anyway?
A normal disc is made up of essentially 2 materials a soft inner substance and a more dense layer of cartilage type tissue. A herniated or bulging disc is when the the softer material breaks through the outer fibers and causes pain or nerve compression. A degenerative disc is when both structures begin to wear out and the disc loses height. When this happens nerve compression can occur as well as bony arthritis.
The intervertebral discs lack a direct blood supply and must rely on the blood flow into the bones above and below. It receives this nutrition through osmosis and movement as long as the disc is healthy.
Once a a disc is damaged it loses it’s normal active ability to draw nutrition from the bones above and below and it becomes unable to maintain adequate hydration. This leads to an unhealthy disc that then can bulge, herniate or become degenerative.
Spinal Decompression is the only treatment available that actually helps the disc heal naturally. Through a patented computerized mechanism negative pressures are created that allow the disc to heal by drawing in fluid and nutrition and sucking back in bulging or degenerative material that is causing pain.