None of my blog articles have caught more attention or been the subject of more flack than when I tell the truth about non-surgical spinal decompression like the VAX-D, DRX-9000 and other pieces of equipment that are similar. You will recall that I am not against the use of these machines in general — only that the marketing of them is seriously misleading and the practitioners who use them frequently sell patients on long term, prepaid care plans that are highly unethical. The marketing of non-surgical spinal decompression also frequently falsely claims superiority over other techniques like flexion-distraction — such claims have not been proved.
As a result of some of the feedback I have received, I came across an article from the journal Chiropractic & Osteopathy titled “Non-surgical spinal decompression therapy: does the scientific literature support efficacy claims made in the advertising media?” published in May 2007.
What’s the bottom line? Does the decompression hype live up to the claims? That’s a big, giant, whopping “NOPE!”
A little more detail, you say? Okay. The article examines this “heavily marketed” version of traction therapy that “can cost over $100,000.” The authors extensively search all the major medical and scientific literature databases to find every scientific research article published on nonsurgical spinal decompression. It turns out, there was only 1 randomized controlled trial, 1 clinical trial, 1 case series and 7 other papers. Each was reviewed individually.
The authors concluded that “In general the quality of these studies is questionable.” And that there was “only limited evidence…available to warrant the routine use of non-surgical spinal decompression, particularly when many other well investigated, less expensive alternatives are available.”
Gee, that sounds just like what I told you a few months ago.
Also interesting was that this intervention has never been compared to exercise, spinal ma
nipulation, standard medical care or other less expensive conservative treatment options which have an ample body of research demonstrating efficacy. How the practitioners can get away with claiming any superiority and not be restrained from doing so is a mystery to me.
I’m not saying that any chiropractor who has a spinal decompression unit is a crook. If he or she is charging you the same as a regular visit in order to use the experimental equipment, then that may be fine. If he or she tries to convince you to pay in advance, sign up for a dozen or two visits or tells you how fantastic the device is compared to other treatments, don’t walk….run away and find another chiropractor.
JeffreyPfeifer said,
September 6, 2008 at 8:33 am
Yo RochesterCiro,
I am new to blogs and I don’t know if I am wasting my time.
I’ll keep it short for now.
I have a lot to say on decompression.
My experience goes back to 1976. . . .before the hype.
Dr.Jeff
rochesterchiro said,
September 6, 2008 at 10:09 pm
I’m listening…what’s on your mind?
david walters said,
September 8, 2008 at 3:24 pm
Sorry I posted this message in “Spinal Decompression–Fact or Crap” by accident. I meant to post it as a comment to this blog entry.
Discussion continues here:
Spinal Decompression — Fact or Crap
mike kerns said,
September 13, 2008 at 12:06 am
I have tried every conservative treatment and stay the same is decompression worth the investment
rochesterchiro said,
September 13, 2008 at 3:25 pm
Mike -
It wouldn’t be responsible of me to make any treatment recommendations without knowing the slightest thing about you or your condition. However, knowing what I do about decompression, if you have truly tried “every conservative treatment” and that included mechanical traction and flexion-distraction, then it is doubtful you will respond any better to non-surgical spinal decompression.
drdebbie said,
September 22, 2008 at 5:50 pm
Thanks for tipping me off about these blog posts Dr. Kinsler, and yes I am rather amused at all the emotional responses you’ve gotten. Usually, I just ask my patients if it passes the crap test (as in, is it too good to be true?).
I recently had a long standing patient come in who is incredibly active and healthy well into his 70s. He had some radiculopathy symptoms for the first time in his life and had found a decompression website on the internet. He went to see the doctor and they took an X-ray. He was told he had incredibly bad degeneration which was causing his symptoms and that he would need $5000 worth of care to get him back to normal. He brought this to me for my opinion. Firstly, his X-rays were not bad at all (never mind that it doesn’t really correlate with symptoms anyways) and secondly we resolved all his pain, numbness and weakness in 5 visits.
My opinion – why not try the more investigated and less expensive option first? Chiropractic certainly is not the silver bullet for everything, but its often a good inexpensive place to start.
rochesterchiro said,
September 22, 2008 at 6:20 pm
Of course responsible chiropractors see examples like yours all the time. Too bad you don’t get paid the rest of the $5000 for getting that patient better much more quickly! I suppose that’s one of the problems with evidence based practice in chiropractic. Getting people better quicker actually makes the doctor less.
I’m okay with that…I couldn’t sleep at night the other way around!
Thanks Dr. Wright for sharing your experience from Vancouver.
Spinal Decompression said,
October 22, 2008 at 7:35 am
To choose the right treatment is most important and if it is about pain than there should not be any compromise. Spinal Decompression is one such choice. It is the best alternative to spine surgery. Some treatments aim at pain suppression, while others are corrective in nature but Decompression therapy treats the factors that cause pain. I have been visiting an informative site for a few weeks now, it is providing good information and helping many with their medical advices. Anyone interested can visit this website Click here to read on Spinal Decompression
Thanks for sharing this…
rochesterchiro said,
October 22, 2008 at 9:59 am
Looks like another one of those marketing websites for spinal decompression that uses unsubstantiated claims. How can you state that anything is the *best* alternative to surgery without having any research to back that?
Thanks for the help with our “medical advices”
Sandra Casciani said,
August 21, 2009 at 4:59 am
Advice for cervical stenosis…please
Sandra Casciani said,
August 21, 2009 at 5:00 am
P.S cervical spinal stenosis
rochesterchiro said,
August 23, 2009 at 8:58 am
Sandra – I have contacted you offline since I have a feeling you have some specific questions.
CGB said,
September 1, 2009 at 11:57 pm
I don’t know if it effective or not. It looks to me like a bench with a winch. I Had 3 treatments on an accu spina machine for my neck. The machine malfunctioned and over pulled. There is no fail safe on it. The magnetic clasp gave way and I was injured. It is a garbage piece of equipment and anything that is run with a windows computer scare the crap out of me.
The Accu Spina machine is very cheaply made. It is computer controlled traction. I have been in chronic pain since 1991. The only time I was pain free was when I had an Atlas Orthogonal adjustment but I no longer live close enough to an atlas DC. AO was great. Dr David Nygaard is a saint.
I have cervical spinal stenosis canal and foraminal and some herniations and disk dessication and tears. God hates me and I hate him right back.
I am now using and inflatable traction collar and I am doing my own version of flexion distraction as my wife is too fat, lazy and uncaring to take the 5 minute away form the TV to do it so I to it myself every few days. It helps.
chiropractor nyc said,
September 11, 2009 at 6:34 pm
Spinal decompression is a *tool* that must be *integrated* into a patients complete and total care plan. Many of those who oppose non-surgical decompression and claim it is no different the traction need to assess the literature on traction. There is quite a bit of evidence to support the use of traction for same conditions and decompresion is, in my opinion, and reincarnation of this treatment modality.
I do agree that misleading advertising claims are properly the real problem here and not the responsible use of decompression therapy.
Although, if the docotor gets sold a 10,000$ piece of equipment for 100,000$ he may feel a certian sense of urgency to sell care plans…
Dr. Sadovnik
NYC Chiropractor
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December 19, 2009 at 1:02 am
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