You might have seen the commercials on late-night TV and wondered about Teeter Hang Ups, a line of inversion tables that promise the "ideal solution" for lower back pain. Can these machines -- or inversion therapy in general -- really provide back pain relief?
We consulted medical research and customer reviews and checked with Dr. John R. Corcoran, the director of inpatient therapy services at Rusk Institute of Rehabilitation Medicine at NYU Langone Medical Center. The verdict: A Teeter Hang Ups inversion table might indeed ease your back pain, but it can't actually heal your back. Like aspirin, Corcoran said, it treats the symptoms without fixing the core problem.
Inversion therapy works on a fairly simple premise: By lying with your head below your feet (or in some cases hanging completely upside down), you engage gravity to elongate your spine, pull apart compressed discs and increase spinal blood supply.
It makes a lot of people feel better, at least for a while. Many customers previously plagued by pain say in reviews that standing, walking, sitting and sleeping are vastly more comfortable after a Teeter Hang Ups session.
Corcoran said his patients frequently request inversion therapy "because they usually feel better when they're on it." But medical research shows back pain is only really cured, he said, by a rehabilitation and exercise routine that contains some level of activity, even a modified level suitable for the condition of your back.
The Ashley
Hot Stone
Bragg's
Epsom Salts
Mavala