How Good Are Inversion Tables for Back Pain Relief?

 

If you’re in pain and need help, would you choose a treatment that is only half as effective?

See the effectiveness of inversion tables for back pain, and how they compare to spinal decompression therapy and chiropractic.

Patients are always asking me about the effectiveness of various types of equipment geared towards lowering disc pressure. The two most commonly brought up are inversion chairs and flexion-distraction technique. Inversion chairs are very common, readily bought at large retailers for a few hundred dollars. They function by using gravity to help stretch and lengthen the spinal column, decreasing overall pressure. Flexion-distraction technique is a specific form of chiropractic adjustment that is effective in increasing intervertebral disc height, which decreases disc pressure and allows healing. This is an amazing therapy that is able to help many neck and back conditions (so much that I include it in my practice). However, are these two examples fully decompressing discs to allow for maximal disc repair?

Unfortunately, the answer is no.

As previously mentioned, effective decompression therapy involves negative intradiscal pressure. Inversion may lower some of the pressure of the spinal column, but its effects are minimal. Flexion-distraction is shown to to be able to decrease pressure in the discs1, but the exact extent is unknown.

So what does this mean? Both don’t create the negative intradiscal pressure needed to fully repair damaged discs.

This is where spinal decompression therapy enters. Studies have shown that decompression tables (such as the table in my office, the HillDT) are able to lower intradiscal pressure to -100 mmHg of pressure2. This provides the negative pressure needed to create a vacuum effect.

Inversion is great for providing a cost-efficient way to help relieve temporary pain caused by simple conditions, but it does not aid in correction. Flexion-distraction is a great therapy to help with many neck and low back problems, mild to moderate. However, patients that have moderate to severe low back and neck problems, including herniations, sciatica and degenerative joint disease– spinal decompression therapy should be considered.

 

Resources:

1) Gudavalli MR, Cambron JA, McGregor M, Jedlicka J, Kenum M, Ghanayem A, Patwardhan A. A randomized clinical trial and subgroup analysis, to compare flexion-distraction with active exercise for chronic low back pain. Eur Spine J 2006, 15(7):1070-82.

2) Ramos G, Martin W. The effects of vertebral axial decompression on intradiscal pressure. J Neurosurg. 1994 Sep;81(3):350-3.

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