Top 5 Alternatives to IDD Therapy

IDD therapy is a non-surgical treatment for disc problems in the back and neck. The computerised machine involves carefully providing spinal decompression to the discs between the vertebrae.

Image you are sitting all day, or forward bending all day. The discs can become compressed, under load. That’s the affect of gravity. However, discs cannot take this load endlessly. Discs are shock absorbers but they need decompression or offloading.

The problem is, in our lifestyles, we rarely get to offload our spines and discs. This is where IDD therapy comes in.

Back in the day, as physios, traction machines were attached to treatment tables to traction the spine of patients with back pain. While traction and decompression are slightly different, they work in similar ways to help elongate the spine and reduce compression on the discs.

However, what are the alternatives to IDD therapy? Let’s look at 5 alternatives:

1. Exercises

Lie on a bed or floor. Bend your knees and keeping your feet flat on the bed or floor, rotate your hips to one side creating a rotation through your lower back. Only go as far as feels comfortable, you do not need to get your knees to the floor. Return to the opposite side. This is an excellent lower back mobility exercise, especially if you have acute lower back pain or disc problems.

Perform 10 repetitions | 3x per day

Exercises are great, but sometimes patients just need a little extra. That’s where IDD can be useful.

2. Surgery

We refer all of our spinal patients to Michael Kotrba at Shirley Oaks Hospital, and St. Anthony’s Hospital. Michael is a consultant orthopaedic surgeon who we love and trust. He has operated on many hundreds of patients, but not operated on many thousands of patients. He always tries to find alternatives to surgical options, usually by using physiotherapy and osteopathy. To contact Michael for an MRI scan or consultation, please call him at Shirley Oaks Hospital.

3. Injections / Epidural

Epidurals are great to reduce pain, especially in cases of sciatica. They really help with the leg pain. However, like most interventions, they can be hit-and-miss. Sometimes they are brilliant, and other times they just do not help. When sciatica is very severe, they are certainly worth trying. Again we recommend a consultation with Michael Kotrba (see paragraph above) for consideration of an epidural.

4. Physiotherapy

Physio is brilliant. It helps loads of people. We help people every day at Surrey Physio. Physio may involve manual therapy, exercises, acupuncture, electrotherapy and rehab. If these options don’t work, we’ll often look for alternatives such as IDD therapy. We provide physiotherapy at Surrey Physio. For IDD therapy, go to www.backinshape.co.uk

5. Osteopathy

Osteopathy is incredible. Many osteopaths have corrected many disc problems. Sidelying mobilisations, foraminal gapping, and manual traction can all be of benefit to patients to help reduce the sciatic nerve pain from a disc herniation. We provide osteopathy at Surrey Physio.

Patients, for IDD therapy treatment, go to www.backinshape.co.uk for more information, or call them on 0208 655 1664.