Non-surgical spinal decompression.

The problem this is built for.

Between each pair of vertebrae sits a disc. It works like a shock absorber, and it lives under constant pressure from your own body weight. Over years of sitting, lifting and driving, a disc can push outward past where it belongs. If it pushes toward a nerve root, you feel it, and often you feel it somewhere other than your back. Down a leg. Into a foot. Along an arm.

That pressure is the target. Adjusting helps the joints move. Muscle work helps the tissue calm down. But when the disc itself is the problem, you have to take load off the disc, and that is what decompression does.

What happens on the table.

You lie down fully clothed. A harness goes around your hips, or around your head and shoulders if we are treating your neck. The table is motorized and computer controlled. It applies a slow pull along the length of your spine, holds it, then eases off, then does it again. The cycle repeats for the whole session.

The pull is gentle and it builds up gradually. That cycling matters. A steady, hard pull makes the body brace against it, and a braced back does not open up. The on-and-off pattern keeps the muscles from fighting the table, which is what allows the space between the vertebrae to widen a little.

A session runs roughly twenty minutes. Most people find it relaxing. Some fall asleep. You get up, walk out, and drive yourself home.

Who it helps.

Decompression fits people whose problem is disc pressure. That usually looks like one of these:

• A herniated or bulging disc in the low back or the neck.
• Sciatica, where pain, numbness or tingling runs down the back of the leg.
• Pain that travels into an arm or hand from the neck.
• Degenerative disc changes that have narrowed the space between vertebrae.
• Back pain that is clearly worse with sitting, bending forward, or the first hour of the morning.

Degenerative disc disease belongs here too, even though the name sounds worse than it is. It is not a disease so much as a description of a disc that has lost height and water content over the years. When that narrowing is what is crowding the nerve, taking pressure off the segment is the same job, and the plan looks much the same. What changes is the expectation. We are not regrowing a disc. We are giving the nerve more room and teaching the spine around it to carry load better.

It is not the answer for everything. If your exam points to a locked facet joint, a muscle strain, or a hip that is doing the work your back should be doing, decompression is the wrong tool and we will not sell it to you. There are also people who should not be on the table at all, including patients with certain fractures, surgical hardware, tumors, or advanced bone loss. That is settled at the exam, not on a website.

See where the disc sits.

Drag the model below. The discs are the pads between the bones. When one of those pads pushes backward, the nerve root leaving the spine at that level is right there in the way. That is the whole mechanism, and seeing it once explains more than a page of text.

What a course of visits looks like.

Decompression is not a one-time treatment. A disc that took years to get where it is does not change in a single session. It is a course of visits, and the sessions are close together at the start and further apart as you improve.

1. 01

   Exam first

   History, orthopedic and neurological testing, and a look at any imaging you already have. If we need films, we will say so. This is where we decide whether the disc is really the problem.

2. 02

   The plan, with a number on it

   You get told how many sessions we are recommending and what it costs before anything starts. No open-ended plan.

3. 03

   The early stretch

   Sessions come frequently in the first few weeks. This is the part that does the work on the disc, and skipping visits here is the most common reason a plan stalls.

4. 04

   Checkpoint

   We re-examine partway through. If the leg pain is pulling back toward the spine and your movement is better, we keep going. If nothing has changed, we say so and talk about what else to do.

5. 05

   Holding it

   Visits spread out and the work shifts toward exercise you do yourself. A decompressed disc still lives in your body, and your body still has to hold it.

What we do alongside it.

Decompression rarely runs on its own. Muscle around an irritated disc has usually been guarding for months, so we often pair sessions with electrical muscle stimulation or cold laser to settle that tissue. Adjusting keeps the joints above and below moving. And therapeutic exercise is what keeps the gains once the table work ends. People who do the home program hold their progress. People who skip it come back.

Cost and insurance.

Most major plans are accepted and self-pay is available. Coverage for decompression varies more than coverage for adjusting, so we check your plan and tell you the real number up front. You should never be surprised by a bill from this office.

Reviewed and approved by Dr. Christopher Boss, DC, Doctor of Chiropractic since 1998 and the treating chiropractor at Boss Chiropractic. Last updated September 11, 2026.

This page is general information, not medical advice. What is right for you depends on your exam. Dr. Boss will tell you straight whether we can help, and where to go if we cannot.