[ventura43]

I have a herniated disc at C6/7. Dr wants to try traction. Has this helped anyone? It feels like its actually aggravating my symptoms.

[Jomar]

What are your symptoms at this time?
What is your avg pain level each day?

[ventura43]

Right now I have pain in my left arm and into my wrist and slight pain in my left shoulder and left side of my neck.

My MRI shows a herniated disc at C6/7 with severe stenosis on the left lateral recess and moderate canal stenosis. Also DDd in C 5/6.

Pain w/o medication is in the 5-7 range.... more severe in my forearm and less severe in the neck and shoulder area.

Neuro wants me to do traction 2x a day for 3 weeks. Just started on Mon and it seems like pain has gotten worse.

[Jomar]

Is PT doing the traction therapy for you?
Do they make adjustments if needed as each session goes along -and asking how you feel before ,during & after?

I haven't had neck traction, but plenty of other PT & DC sessions for my RSI/TOS (more or less a chronic repetitive work injury).

[Sheri_TOS]

Most likely, you are doing the traction during PT sessions. At your next visit, they will ask how things are going. This is your time to answer honestly. They can adjust what they are doing, maybe they need to apply less traction, or try something else. Several years ago, my neighbor used traction through PT and a home traction device for a few months and managed to avoid having her neck fused. Traction does help but it doesn't mean that it will help everyone. For me, acupuncture works really well.

[ventura43]

This is a home unit. It uses a head harness, pulleys and a bag of water for the weight. The bag is marked w/ wts at certain levels so you can fill it according to what your Dr says. I started w/ 10# but have cut back to 8#. He has me using it 2-3 times a day for 10-15 minutes.

I've been at it almost a week now but I don't think I'm seeing any improvement at all. In fact, I hurt a little more. I was just wondering if anyone with a herniated disc has found relief w/ traction.

[Dr. Smith]

Originally Posted by ventura43

I was just wondering if anyone with a herniated disc has found relief w/ traction.

Yes. I have the same kind of unit, but I don't use the water bag; I use other known weights instead, which is fine. It may hurt more at first, try less weight, less time (but maybe more often) and work up slowly as you would with any exercise plan - don't overdo.

It's also very important that you sit facing the door. This is about as boring as I can imagine - put on some tunes, but don't try to sit perpendicular and watch TV; the stresses on the pulleys and your neck won't be correctly aligned, so it won't be therapeutic. Make sure the pulleys are free rolling (not binding/restricted).

Give it a chance. I still pull mine out from time to time for refresher courses and find it somewhat helpful. The alternative is the type that you use while lying down on your back, but they're something like 4x the expense. I've heard different doctors prefer one type over the other and vice-versa, so I'm not convinced that the more expensive one is really better, as my own ortho-surgeon (whom I have a great trust relationship with) has the over-the-door type himself and prefers it.

But whatever you do, don't do what I did. The first time I put the darned thing on, all I could think of was this:
http://tinyurl.com/3nea9p3

You can really hurt yourself that way!

HTH,

Doc

[Dr. Smith]

I've also heard of people using inversion tables, but I have no idea how effective that might be with a cervical issue.

Google: inversion table cervical

Doc

[Sheri_TOS]

From personal experience with inversion tables, I found it didn't help with cervical issues because there isn't enough weight to stretch out the neck. Whereas, for lumbar issues, the table works good because you have your upper body weight helping to stretch out the lumbar spine.

[ventura43]

Actually, my husband & I used to use Inversion Boots. You strapped them on your ankles and hung upside down from a bar. We were long distance runners at the time (the 80's) and used them regularly. It really helped. I asked the nuerosurgeon at my appt. about inversion and he said he highly recommended it for lower back pain....not so much for cervical.

That said, they called me today to see how I was doing & when I said I was getting headaches they said DON'T USE IT.

So, no traction for the time being and we'll see if I still have the arm issues and neck pain.