There are a number of Treatment Options For Sciatica, Herniated Discs, and Degenerative Disc Disease. Each option has its pros and cons, and some treatments may not be possible in all cases.
No treatment is 100% effective in cases of sciatica, disc-related back pain, and/or other disc-related symptoms. Because the most commonly used treatments have been far from ideal, the seach for new treatments continues.
We are proud to be among the first health care facilities in the San Antonio area to offer one of the most promising sciatica and herniated disc | degenerative disc disease treatments to come along in decades!
Before I discuss this new method of treatment, and the amazing offer I make to allow you to experience the effects of it without spending a dime, let's first look at the most commonly-used treatments available.
Medication is of course the first line of treatment for many afflicted with sciatica and other disc symptoms. Over the counter pain relievers and anti-inflammatories may help in mild cases. In more severe situations, prescription anti-inflammatories, pain killers, and/or muscle relaxers may be used. Medication is typically a short-term measure for dealing with acute symptoms, and some people cannot take certain medications due to the side-effects. If the condition is not resolving within a few weeks, other treatment options usually need to be considered.
Bed Rest is usually used in conjunction with medication. While it may be necessary in the first few days, most experts now agree that extended bed rest is actually counter-productive as it leads to muscle deconditioning. People with sciatica and other disc symptoms are encouraged to remain as mobile as possible and not lie down for long periods of time.
Physical Therapy is often prescribed in cases of sciatica, herniated discs, and degenerative disc disease. Most of the time, therapy will start out with treatments like electrical muscle stimulation, ultrasound, massage, and other treatments intended to reduce pain. As a patient's symptoms improve, then therapy shifts more to a rehabilitation mode in which exercise is employed to improve strength and spinal stability. For information on exercises you can do on your own to help sciatica and other disc-related symptoms, go to our Sciatica Exercises website.
Injections With Steroids And Other Medications may be prescribed in an attempt to reduce inflammation and pain symptoms. Unfortunately, although injections may reduce pain at first, in many cases symptoms return as bad or even worse within days or weeks. Since steroids carry the side-effects of immune suppression, osteoporosis, and soft tissue degeneration, frequent use of steroid injections should be avoided if at all possible.
Surgery should be considered as a last resort for people with sciatica, herniated discs, and/or degenerative disc disease. While surgery may be the only option in some situations, the overall long-term success rate is poor, and in some cases symptoms only get worse following surgery. Although surgery is sometimes thought of as a "permanent fix" for disc problems, this is rarely the case. Of course, removing a damaged disc will ensure that the disc that was removed will not produce any further problems, the alterations in spinal biomechanics that results from such a procedure typically creates such abnormal stresses in the spine that other discs subsequently herniate and/or degenerate over time. A telling statistic is that one of the leading predictors that a person will need to have disc surgery is that they have had prior disc surgery.
Now We Come To An Effective New Treatment For
Sciatica, Disc Herniations, and Disc Degeneration:
Spinal Decompression Treatment is an advanced form of spinal traction that uses a computer-controlled motor to gently and slowly reduce the pressure in the spinal discs and create a suction within the disc to "suck" in disc bulges and improve disc hydration and nutrition to assist in disc healing. Earlier forms of traction could be quite painful due to the tendency of the body's muscles to contract in reaction to the traction force. With spinal decompression, the computer rapidly adjusts to what the body is doing and modifies the treatment in such a way that the muscles stay relaxed, and the treatment is comfortable and effective.
The preliminary research on spinal decompression has been quite promising - an 80 to 90% success rate (depending on the study), with a less than 5% recurrence rate at 1-year follow-up. It is currently one of the safest and most effective treatments available for sciatica and other symptoms related to bulging discs, herniated discs and/or degenerative disc disease.
Even so, spinal decompression does have some limitations and drawbacks. The primary limitations are that it cannot be used in cases where there has been prior surgery with metal implantation in the spine (it can and is used quite effectively in other post-surgical cases), it cannot be used in cases where spinal instability is present, it cannot be used during pregnancy (due to the harnesses used that would compress the abdomen), and it cannot be used when spinal cancer or spinal infection is present.
The main drawbacks of spinal decompression are that it is somewhat costly (although not in comparison to surgery), and it currently is not usually covered by insurance (because spinal decompression is so new, it does not yet have an insurance code and therefore insurance companies will typically consider it "experimental" even though it is fully FDA-cleared).
The one other issue with spinal decompression that is also true of any other form of treatment is that there really is no way to know in whether or not it will work for you unless you try it. To illustrate this point, let me share with you what I'll call...
A Tale Of Two Patients:
The first patient is a gentleman in his 80's with severe disc degeneration and herniation causing narrowing of the spinal nerve canals and compressing the spinal nerves at multiple levels. Needless to say, he was in quite a bit of pain. Upon reviewing his MRI, I told him that I thought his condition was too severe to be helped with spinal decompression. I initially declined to take his case and referred him to a couple of surgeons I thought might be able to help. A few weeks later, the same gentleman returned to my office, and he told me that he didn't like what the surgeons had told him and he asked if there was a reason why he could not try spinal decompression before he considered surgery. Since he did not have any conditions that would contraindicate treatment, I agreed to give him a trial of spinal decompression. To my amazement, in three treatments, he was pain-free!
The second patient is a gentleman in his mid 30's who had been quite active up until his back injury and lived a pretty healthy lifestyle. His MRI showed a mild to moderate disc bulge at only one level with only mild pressure on the spinal nerve at this level. I accepted his case, expecting to get good results. Unfortunately, for whatever reason, he turned out to be one of those people in the 10% or so who do not get good results with spinal decompression. After several treatments without any lasting improvment, I eventually referred him to a surgeon.
The bottom-line is, although statistically there's an excellent chance that anyone I can accept for spinal decompression will get better, there's simply no way to tell until we try it.
Because of this, and because the treatment is relatively costly (although not as much with me as with other decompression providers - more on this in a moment) with not much chance of insurance coverage...
I offer a rather unusual deal...
Like most spinal decompression providers, I offer a FREE consultation to determine if you are a suitable candidate for decompression treatment, but that's where the similarity ends between myself and other spinal decompression doctors.
First, unlike most decompression providers, I don't require you to sign a contract for 20 visits or more. I used to do this, but I have had a good number of patients now who have done quite well just getting decompression treatments as-needed for pain control without going through the whole spinal decompression "protocol".
In fact, my office assistant, Belinda, has a lumbar disc herniation, and she does just fine getting a decompression treatment once every few months when she overdoes and her back starts hurting. She has never gone through the full initial spinal decompression protocol (usually a minimum of 20 visits done over a 2 to 3 month period) and has only had spinal decompression on an as-needed basis for pain control. Because of this, I can't in good conscience tell someone that they "NEED" 20 visits and insist that they commit to that amount of treatment.
So, in my office, spinal decompression is available on a "pay as you go" basis - you don't have to come up with thousands of dollars in advance.
Second, and here's the amazing part of the offer...
I'll allow you to have as many as 3 visits to decide if spinal decompression works for you or not and you don't have to pay anything unless you are convinced that the treatment has benefitted you. If you are happy with the treatment, I'll expect you to pay for those visits, but if you're not, we can part friends and you don't owe me anything. You don't have to give me a deposit, you don't need to write a post-dated check, you don't have to give me a credit card number, NOTHING! If I can accept you for spinal decompression, you can have up to 3 visits and then decide whether it was worth paying for. If you want to continue past 3 visits, then you simply pay as you go for however many visits you want. There's no minimum number of visits and you can come as you need to.
Finally, in reviewing my past consultations with prospective decompression patients, I came to the realization that many people who desperately need this form of treatment are unable to get it due to financial limitations. Unfortunately, the economy is not in the best of shape and many people are struggling. Many of the people I see who need decompression have been out of work because of their back problems and are particularly hard-hit financially.
I can only reduce my fee for spinal decompression so much due to the high cost of providing this treatment. The decompression machine I use is the "top of the line". There are cheaper ones on the market, but I figured if I was going to do spinal decompression, I wanted the best machine available. Here's a picture of the machine:
It's about 12 feet long and 4 feet wide, it has 5 separate computers on it, it cost me $135,000, and I've still got a LOT of payments to make on it. So although I can't lower the cost of treatment as much as I'd like to, with the economic conditions being what they are and with the number of people who really need this treatment, I have "crunched the numbers" and have brought the treatment cost down as low as I can.
So, as of this website going "live", spinal decompression treatment will be available in my office for $125 per session. Depending on my costs, I may have to increase this in the future, but for right now, it's $125 per session.
There are other doctors in the area using cheaper decompression machines and charging less per treatment. I have seen several patients over the last few years who were previously treated on those cheaper machines before being treated on mine and, well, let's just say that the old adage of "you get what you pay for" definitely comes into play when it comes to decompression.
Again, the sessions in my office are available on a pay as you go basis, with no minimum contract. If I can accept your case, I'll let you have up to 3 treatment sessions and you can decide if those sessions were worth paying for.
If you happen to decide that you want to have several sessions, we work with a couple of healthcare financing companies so you can pay for your treatments over a longer period of time if you need to.
So, Once Again, Here Are The Details Of My Offer:
* Free Consultation To Determine If You Are A
Candidate For Decompression Treatment.
* 3 Treatment Sessions For You To Decide If
Decompression Helps You Before You Pay
Anything.
* No Contract Or Upfront Payment Required.
If you want to find out what we can do to help you, email to info@SpineSA.com or contact us at:
No treatment is 100% effective in cases of sciatica, disc-related back pain, and/or other disc-related symptoms. Because the most commonly used treatments have been far from ideal, the seach for new treatments continues.
We are proud to be among the first health care facilities in the San Antonio area to offer one of the most promising sciatica and herniated disc | degenerative disc disease treatments to come along in decades!
Before I discuss this new method of treatment, and the amazing offer I make to allow you to experience the effects of it without spending a dime, let's first look at the most commonly-used treatments available.
Medication is of course the first line of treatment for many afflicted with sciatica and other disc symptoms. Over the counter pain relievers and anti-inflammatories may help in mild cases. In more severe situations, prescription anti-inflammatories, pain killers, and/or muscle relaxers may be used. Medication is typically a short-term measure for dealing with acute symptoms, and some people cannot take certain medications due to the side-effects. If the condition is not resolving within a few weeks, other treatment options usually need to be considered.
Bed Rest is usually used in conjunction with medication. While it may be necessary in the first few days, most experts now agree that extended bed rest is actually counter-productive as it leads to muscle deconditioning. People with sciatica and other disc symptoms are encouraged to remain as mobile as possible and not lie down for long periods of time.
Physical Therapy is often prescribed in cases of sciatica, herniated discs, and degenerative disc disease. Most of the time, therapy will start out with treatments like electrical muscle stimulation, ultrasound, massage, and other treatments intended to reduce pain. As a patient's symptoms improve, then therapy shifts more to a rehabilitation mode in which exercise is employed to improve strength and spinal stability. For information on exercises you can do on your own to help sciatica and other disc-related symptoms, go to our Sciatica Exercises website.
Injections With Steroids And Other Medications may be prescribed in an attempt to reduce inflammation and pain symptoms. Unfortunately, although injections may reduce pain at first, in many cases symptoms return as bad or even worse within days or weeks. Since steroids carry the side-effects of immune suppression, osteoporosis, and soft tissue degeneration, frequent use of steroid injections should be avoided if at all possible.
Surgery should be considered as a last resort for people with sciatica, herniated discs, and/or degenerative disc disease. While surgery may be the only option in some situations, the overall long-term success rate is poor, and in some cases symptoms only get worse following surgery. Although surgery is sometimes thought of as a "permanent fix" for disc problems, this is rarely the case. Of course, removing a damaged disc will ensure that the disc that was removed will not produce any further problems, the alterations in spinal biomechanics that results from such a procedure typically creates such abnormal stresses in the spine that other discs subsequently herniate and/or degenerate over time. A telling statistic is that one of the leading predictors that a person will need to have disc surgery is that they have had prior disc surgery.
Now We Come To An Effective New Treatment For
Sciatica, Disc Herniations, and Disc Degeneration:
Spinal Decompression Treatment is an advanced form of spinal traction that uses a computer-controlled motor to gently and slowly reduce the pressure in the spinal discs and create a suction within the disc to "suck" in disc bulges and improve disc hydration and nutrition to assist in disc healing. Earlier forms of traction could be quite painful due to the tendency of the body's muscles to contract in reaction to the traction force. With spinal decompression, the computer rapidly adjusts to what the body is doing and modifies the treatment in such a way that the muscles stay relaxed, and the treatment is comfortable and effective.
The preliminary research on spinal decompression has been quite promising - an 80 to 90% success rate (depending on the study), with a less than 5% recurrence rate at 1-year follow-up. It is currently one of the safest and most effective treatments available for sciatica and other symptoms related to bulging discs, herniated discs and/or degenerative disc disease.
Even so, spinal decompression does have some limitations and drawbacks. The primary limitations are that it cannot be used in cases where there has been prior surgery with metal implantation in the spine (it can and is used quite effectively in other post-surgical cases), it cannot be used in cases where spinal instability is present, it cannot be used during pregnancy (due to the harnesses used that would compress the abdomen), and it cannot be used when spinal cancer or spinal infection is present.
The main drawbacks of spinal decompression are that it is somewhat costly (although not in comparison to surgery), and it currently is not usually covered by insurance (because spinal decompression is so new, it does not yet have an insurance code and therefore insurance companies will typically consider it "experimental" even though it is fully FDA-cleared).
The one other issue with spinal decompression that is also true of any other form of treatment is that there really is no way to know in whether or not it will work for you unless you try it. To illustrate this point, let me share with you what I'll call...
A Tale Of Two Patients:
The first patient is a gentleman in his 80's with severe disc degeneration and herniation causing narrowing of the spinal nerve canals and compressing the spinal nerves at multiple levels. Needless to say, he was in quite a bit of pain. Upon reviewing his MRI, I told him that I thought his condition was too severe to be helped with spinal decompression. I initially declined to take his case and referred him to a couple of surgeons I thought might be able to help. A few weeks later, the same gentleman returned to my office, and he told me that he didn't like what the surgeons had told him and he asked if there was a reason why he could not try spinal decompression before he considered surgery. Since he did not have any conditions that would contraindicate treatment, I agreed to give him a trial of spinal decompression. To my amazement, in three treatments, he was pain-free!
The second patient is a gentleman in his mid 30's who had been quite active up until his back injury and lived a pretty healthy lifestyle. His MRI showed a mild to moderate disc bulge at only one level with only mild pressure on the spinal nerve at this level. I accepted his case, expecting to get good results. Unfortunately, for whatever reason, he turned out to be one of those people in the 10% or so who do not get good results with spinal decompression. After several treatments without any lasting improvment, I eventually referred him to a surgeon.
The bottom-line is, although statistically there's an excellent chance that anyone I can accept for spinal decompression will get better, there's simply no way to tell until we try it.
Because of this, and because the treatment is relatively costly (although not as much with me as with other decompression providers - more on this in a moment) with not much chance of insurance coverage...
I offer a rather unusual deal...
Like most spinal decompression providers, I offer a FREE consultation to determine if you are a suitable candidate for decompression treatment, but that's where the similarity ends between myself and other spinal decompression doctors.
First, unlike most decompression providers, I don't require you to sign a contract for 20 visits or more. I used to do this, but I have had a good number of patients now who have done quite well just getting decompression treatments as-needed for pain control without going through the whole spinal decompression "protocol".
In fact, my office assistant, Belinda, has a lumbar disc herniation, and she does just fine getting a decompression treatment once every few months when she overdoes and her back starts hurting. She has never gone through the full initial spinal decompression protocol (usually a minimum of 20 visits done over a 2 to 3 month period) and has only had spinal decompression on an as-needed basis for pain control. Because of this, I can't in good conscience tell someone that they "NEED" 20 visits and insist that they commit to that amount of treatment.
So, in my office, spinal decompression is available on a "pay as you go" basis - you don't have to come up with thousands of dollars in advance.
Second, and here's the amazing part of the offer...
I'll allow you to have as many as 3 visits to decide if spinal decompression works for you or not and you don't have to pay anything unless you are convinced that the treatment has benefitted you. If you are happy with the treatment, I'll expect you to pay for those visits, but if you're not, we can part friends and you don't owe me anything. You don't have to give me a deposit, you don't need to write a post-dated check, you don't have to give me a credit card number, NOTHING! If I can accept you for spinal decompression, you can have up to 3 visits and then decide whether it was worth paying for. If you want to continue past 3 visits, then you simply pay as you go for however many visits you want. There's no minimum number of visits and you can come as you need to.
Finally, in reviewing my past consultations with prospective decompression patients, I came to the realization that many people who desperately need this form of treatment are unable to get it due to financial limitations. Unfortunately, the economy is not in the best of shape and many people are struggling. Many of the people I see who need decompression have been out of work because of their back problems and are particularly hard-hit financially.
I can only reduce my fee for spinal decompression so much due to the high cost of providing this treatment. The decompression machine I use is the "top of the line". There are cheaper ones on the market, but I figured if I was going to do spinal decompression, I wanted the best machine available. Here's a picture of the machine:
It's about 12 feet long and 4 feet wide, it has 5 separate computers on it, it cost me $135,000, and I've still got a LOT of payments to make on it. So although I can't lower the cost of treatment as much as I'd like to, with the economic conditions being what they are and with the number of people who really need this treatment, I have "crunched the numbers" and have brought the treatment cost down as low as I can.
So, as of this website going "live", spinal decompression treatment will be available in my office for $125 per session. Depending on my costs, I may have to increase this in the future, but for right now, it's $125 per session.
There are other doctors in the area using cheaper decompression machines and charging less per treatment. I have seen several patients over the last few years who were previously treated on those cheaper machines before being treated on mine and, well, let's just say that the old adage of "you get what you pay for" definitely comes into play when it comes to decompression.
Again, the sessions in my office are available on a pay as you go basis, with no minimum contract. If I can accept your case, I'll let you have up to 3 treatment sessions and you can decide if those sessions were worth paying for.
If you happen to decide that you want to have several sessions, we work with a couple of healthcare financing companies so you can pay for your treatments over a longer period of time if you need to.
So, Once Again, Here Are The Details Of My Offer:
* Free Consultation To Determine If You Are A
Candidate For Decompression Treatment.
* 3 Treatment Sessions For You To Decide If
Decompression Helps You Before You Pay
Anything.
* No Contract Or Upfront Payment Required.
If you want to find out what we can do to help you, email to info@SpineSA.com or contact us at:
Best Health And Wellness
Dr. George Best, D.C.
(210) 341-7040
We are located at:
11230 West Avenue, Suite #1109
(in the Commons West Offices)
San Antonio, Texas 78213
Dr. George Best, D.C.
(210) 341-7040
We are located at:
11230 West Avenue, Suite #1109
(in the Commons West Offices)
San Antonio, Texas 78213
To contact us, email to info@SpineSA.com, or call us at (210)341-7040.
Copyright 2008 SpineSA.com Sciatica Herniated Disc Degenerative Disc Disease Treatment Options San Antonio
Copyright 2008 SpineSA.com Sciatica Herniated Disc Degenerative Disc Disease Treatment Options San Antonio
