GLASTONBURY, Conn. -- A new treatment option for chronic back pain available in Connecticut started out in space.

Channel 3 Eyewitness News reporter Susan Raff reported the new technique might help people suffering from back pain, but researchers don't yet know the long-term effects.

Maryann Koshol suffers from chronic back pain, also known as sciatica.

"I was told I needed eight hours of surgery to correct my back with steel rods, and a year of rehab, and a lot of pain initially in the pre-op, and I wept," she said.

For Koshol, surgery wasn't an option.

"What am I going to do? I can't go on living the way I am because I was in constant pain, and taking pain medication that just doped me up so that I was a zombie, I didn't want to live like that," Koshol said.

That's when she found the DRX 9000, a new nonsurgical treatment that was first discovered by NASA scientists when astronauts came home without back pain.

"The difference is really the way the pull is," Dr. Matthew Bellinger of Glastonbury explained. "It's on what we call a logarithmic curve, so it ensures a slow, even pull throughout the whole treatment. Plus, it's like an accordion -- the patient feels a pull, then a relax that helps ease the muscles out of the treatment."

The machine may look overwhelming, but patients like Koshol said it's actually relaxing.

"I feel nothing. It almost feels good to be harnessed in," she said. "It is almost like being in a lounge or on a bed, no discomfort whatever."

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has approved the technique, but because it's so new, researchers do not know the possible long-term results.

Some doctors, like Dr. Syed Hason of the UConn Medical Center, are keeping with more traditional methods to ease lower back pain until the DRX 9000 passes the test of time.

"Based on the experimental models, the pressure inside the disc can improve the nutrition inside the disc, and can, therefore, improve the process, but cannot prove that this is an actual cure," Hason said.

"I got my life back and isn't that exciting?" Koshol said.

Koshol has finished her 20 treatments and said she has never felt better.

Link: DRX 9000 Manufacturer's Web Site

NIH MedlinePLUS: Back Pain Information, Resources

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