The Vax d Option

If you have back problems you might be in need of some physical therapy and rehabilitation services in order to improve your quality of life. If you look for a chiropractic office, you will be sure to find some kind of help for your back pain. One amazing new way to cure pack pain is by using vertebral axial decompression (VAX-D) therapy. Data was collected from twenty-two medical centers for patients who received VAX-D therapy for low back pain, which was sometimes accompanied by leg pain. Only patients who received at least ten sessions and had a diagnosis of herniated disc or bulging disc, degenerative or desiccated disc, or facet syndrome, which were confirmed by diagnostic imaging, were included in this study, which included a total of 778 cases. The average time between the initial onset of symptoms and the beginning of this therapy was 40 months, and it was four months or more in 83% of the cases. The data contained the patients' quantitative assessments of their own pain, mobility, and ability to carry out the usual 'activities of daily living'. The treatment was successful in 71% of the 778 cases, when success was defined as a reduction in pain to 0 or 1, on a 0 to 5 scale. Improvements in mobility and activities of daily living correlated strongly with pain reduction. The causes of back pain and their relationship to this therapy are also discussed.

For the majority of patients, the cause or causes of persistent low back pain remains poorly understood. Although imaging procedures, including CT and MRI, are able to accurately define structural pathology, the correlation of these anatomic findings with physiology, back pain, and other clinical complaints is imprecise. Although surgical decompression, epidural blocks, and spinal instrumentation can sometimes help patients suffering from back pain, these treatments do not completely take the biomechanical function of the disc into account, and may leave patients unrelieved of their suffering. In addressing the dysfunction of the disc with discectomy or surgical instrumentation, the biomechanical and physiological function of the disc is permanently disrupted.

Low back pain is often aggravated by activities that increase axial loading on the spine, such as sitting, standing, and lifting. Patients may describe some relief from walking, but more particularly, by lying down, which unloads the spine and reduces intradiscal pressure. Additional causes of low back pain may include degenerative or desiccated disc disease, degenerative spondylosis with limitation of range of motion, facet arthropathy, relative lateral recess stenosis from a combination of the above, microenvironment pressure changes affecting the thecal and epidural space from disc bulging, subligamentous and/or extruded herniation, and segmental instability.

Pain generation from degenerative disc disease is probably multifactorial. A number of potential mechanisms are specifically addressed by the lumbar vertebral body separation achieved during VAX-D therapy. With aging, disc desiccation occurs, disc height is lost, and this process is often also accelerated with activities which produce high physical loading of the lumbar spine. Osteophytes can develop along the anterolateral and posterior border of the vertebral bodies, which causes spinal stenosis, and facet arthropathy often increases as degenerative disc change advances. Normal vertebral body separation is lost as the disc degenerates. Redundancy of the posterior longitudinal ligament and ligamentum flavum combine with osteophyte encroachment upon the neuroforamen or central canal, resulting in stenosis at these sites, which is increased by axial loading of the spine.

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