This week we’re going to be talking about IDD therapy. You may or may not know that we have been using spinal decompression therapy for a number of years here at the clinic, it’s a treatment that essentially targets the discs in your lower back or in the neck, an ideal treatment for patients with any sort of disc injury such as a slipped disc, bulging disc, herniated disc or degenerated discs.

What Is IDD Therapy?

So how does it help? IDD therapy allows the patient to be slowly lowered down into a horizontal position, one of the main benefits of this type of machine, as many disc injuries can leave the sufferer with constant discomfort. It then uses a small proportion of your bodyweight to gently stretch the spine in cycles. The protocol alternates between a maximum pull, and then back down to half of that amount. This creates a pumping effect inside the discs, which allows for nutrients and hydration to go into the disc space, and decreasing the pressure on the disc. Decreasing the pressure on the disc helps with the overall healing process and to reduce the bulge or slip. If the patient suffers with sciatica, or referred pain into the shoulders, arms or hands if the slip is located in the neck, the nerves become free to move again without compression – which in many cases provides immediate relief of pain. This pumping action would be similar to cleaning your kitchen sponge. If you were to take your sponge and pop it in the sink, as you pump it you get an exchange of fluid in and out of the sponge, which helps to wash it out so that you get an exchange of good stuff going in, and bad stuff going out.

How Is Our Spinal Decompression Different?

You may be familiar with spinal decompression, as various at-home spinal decompression devices exist, the NHS used to offer traction therapy, and inversion tables used to be popular. However, these are all very uncontrolled and risky treatments that have the potential to apply a greater pull on the spine, which is not going to be helpful. Spinal decompression tables are much more sophisticated nowadays thanks to the research backing this machine. The pull can be controlled and the angle can focus the treatment to particular segments of the spine, with our initial consultation and examination being able to determine which area we need to hone in on.

When taking into consideration your examination findings, your spinal decompression settings will be programmed in. These settings include the maximum and minimum pulling values, this will start conservatively to help you adapt to the treatment. It also includes the amount of time the treatment will be held at those maximum and minimum settings, and the angle of the pull. We take care to record your settings, and log any changes as your treatment program progresses. It is these interchangeable values that gives us complete control over your treatment, and small changes can be applied to enhance the healing process. During the treatment, you may notice a gentle stretch that most patients tend to find relaxing, as they will often feel ‘squashed’ day-to-day. Typically patients often fall asleep during the treatment, as it might be one of the few times their pain is alleviated, if you’ve ever had a disc injury you’ll know this type of pain can be exhausting on the body.

What Happens Post-Treatment?

When the treatment has been completed, the table will then slowly bring you back up into the standing position, and the practitioner will guide you off to make sure that you’re not irritating the good work that’s been done through the duration of the treatment. The practitioner will advise you as to what you can improve in your day-to-day life to maintain your spinal health. Patients will often feel relief after just the first session, and when this happens it can be tempting to jump back into behaviours that could irritate the spine further. All too often, there are habits and activities that patients to on a daily basis that have contributed to them not healing in the first place, and making their problem worse. These can include consistently looking down to look at your phone, incorrect desk set-up, poor posture at a desk, looking down at a laptop, slouching in bed or on the sofa in the evenings.

Most people end up seeing us here at The Mayfair Clinic because they’ve previously had a lack of direction or poor guidance in the past. They may have tried every practitioner in the book, from traditional chiropractic or osteopathic treatment, acupuncture, NHS or private physio and been referred to pain clinics. Despite this, we do have fantastic results with up to a 90% success rate. We combine our treatment with a robust rehabilitation program on an app developed by our spinal experts at the clinic, to provide exercises that will help you to strengthen your back and core – for long-term spinal health and wellbeing.

If you have any questions about how spinal decompression can work for you, if you have any scans and you’d like to ask our opinion, do get in touch either via our email at info@themayfairclinic.com, by calling us on 0203 947 3222 or by filling out a contact form on our website, then a member of the team will get in touch with you! We hope you’ve found this article helpful, if you have any questions do let us know and remember to share this article with someone you know that might benefit from our treatment!

Contact Us.

Email Us

info@themayfairclinic.com

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0203 947 32 22

Clinic Address

4 Cavendish Square, London, W1g 0PG.