Get Your Life Back with Non-Surgical Spinal Decompression
What decompression is, who it suits, and what a course of care looks like from the first session onward.
Your journey
Sports chiropractic for athletes and active adults in Marietta
You do not want to be told to rest. You want to know what is actually torn, worn or restricted — and what it takes to train on it again.
50+ YearsCombined Experience
10,000+Patients Helped
Certified100 Year Lifestyle Practice
Drug-FreeSolutions
Same-DayAppointments
The problem
You did not quit — you negotiated your way down to less
Most people here are not in pain. They have quietly negotiated their life down — the long run became a short run, then nothing. The question is whether the injury from 2009 is really who you are now.
Your challenges
What is actually stopping you?
Tap the ones that sound like you and the rest of this page narrows to match. Choose none and you will see everything we treat.
Our solutions
How this actually gets treated
Relief first, because pain makes everything else impossible — then the correction, because relief alone is why old injuries keep coming back.
Why the surgery question deserves a real answer, not reassurance
Most people in this group have already been told they might need surgery, or are terrified of being told. Both make it hard to think clearly. So here is the plain version: a large share of disc problems improve without an operation, some genuinely need one, and the difference is knowable. Progressive weakness, a foot that drags, changes in bowel or bladder control, or pain that escalates while at rest are reasons to be examined promptly and imaged — not reasons for a trial of conservative care.
Everything else deserves a properly built non-surgical attempt first, with a date on it. Not open-ended treatment that quietly becomes a subscription.
Recognize yourself
Sound familiar?
These are the problems that most often bring athletes and active adults in, and the ones that most often respond.
What usually went wrong, and it is rarely the thing that hurts
An old injury does not persist because the tissue never healed. It persists because you built a way of moving around it, and that way of moving is now your normal. The ankle you sprained at nineteen stopped rotating properly, so the hip above it took over, so the lower back on that side does more work every single step. Twenty years and several million steps later, the back is the thing that hurts. Treating the back alone is why it keeps coming back.
This is also why the honest answer to "what is wrong with me" is sometimes longer than one word. An examination that ends in a single label — a pinched nerve, a bad disc — has usually not looked above and below the painful part.
Performance
Test yourself before you book
Five self-tests for golf, racquet sports or running. For anything you fail, it tells you what it costs you and what your body does instead — which is usually the more useful half.
What happens next
What the first ninety days look like
Measured, because you will not accept "it feels better"
This is the group most likely to have plateaued in a previous course of care, and the reason is almost always the same: nothing was being measured, so nobody could tell whether the plan was working. We take baselines you can actually check against — ranges of motion, the specific movements that provoke it, what load you can carry, how far you can run before the pattern breaks down. Then we re-test.
What you should expect from any sports chiropractor in Marietta, including this one, is that if the numbers are not moving by the point they should be, the plan changes or you get referred on. That is a commitment, not a slogan, and it is the whole reason we put a date in your plan.
- Visit one
Examination, and an explanation you could repeat to your coach
History, movement testing above and below the painful area, and a straight answer on whether this is a chiropractic case at all. If it is not, you are told so and pointed somewhere useful. Imaging if the examination calls for it, not by default.
- Weeks one to three
Get the pain down and keep you training
The aim is to keep you doing as much as the injury safely allows rather than shutting you down. Usually that means modifying the load, not removing it. You leave with what you may do this week, in writing.
- Weeks three to eight
Fix the pattern that caused it
This is the part previous care most often skipped, and the reason the problem returns. Corrective work on the restriction, then strength through the range you have just regained, so it holds under load.
- Around week eight
Re-test against your own baseline
Same measurements as visit one. Better means we taper. Not better means the plan changes or you are referred — and we say which, rather than adding more visits.
Technology we use for this
Technology that guides your care
Class IV Robotic MLS Laser Therapy
Two wavelengths, and enough power to reach a hip.
IASTM (Graston-Style) Instruments
A steel edge finding what a thumb cannot.
PiezoWave Myofascial Acoustic Compression Therapy
Acoustic pressure, aimed at one square centimeter.
Whole-Body Vibration Therapy
Vibration recruits muscle you cannot recruit on purpose.
Cold Laser / Low-Level Laser Therapy
Light the tissue absorbs, at low power.
Electrical Muscle Stimulation & Interferential Current
Interrupting a pain signal and a muscle spasm.
Digital Posture Analysis
Posture, measured in degrees and millimeters.
Dynamic Compression Therapy
Rhythmic pressure that moves what swelling leaves behind.
Video
Our doctors on camera
Can Damaged Discs Heal? The Research May Surprise You
What the published evidence does and does not show about disc healing, without overstating the case.
Written by our clinicians
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The 100 Year Lifestyle supports every journey
Three different people walk into Plasker Chiropractic with three different reasons. The plan is not the same for any of them.
Your comeback starts here
Athletes reclaiming performance after an injury that was supposed to be the end of it.
Your vitality continues here
Retirees protecting the independence that makes the next thirty years worth having.
Your wellness thrives here
Families choosing natural, drug-free care as a first option rather than a last one.
The 100 Year Lifestyle is a registered trademark and service mark in the United States and Canada. Plasker Chiropractic is a certified provider.
Unedited Google reviews
From patients who came in for the same reason
Dr. Eric and Dr. Cory do an amazing job. I have hit many milestones since coming here… I feel great! I am in the midst of training for a marathon and coming here now couldn’t be better timing. I have recently hit personal record goals for performance related pursuits, including improving my running…
We came to Plasker for my son who had a sport strain. They have helped and guided him and my older son on having optimum performance on the baseball field and have guided us on getting their body back in alignment to function properly. My boys love their adjustments and are feeling great!
Dr. Cory and Dr. Eric are amazing and really care about their patients. It’s been great working with them and I’ve never felt more in touch with my body. I live a very active lifestyle and the Chiropractic adjustments help me to mitigate injury when doing CrossFit and running. Karen is super helpful…
Questions patients ask
The questions athletes actually ask
Will an adjustment stop me training this week?
Usually not. In most cases we modify what you do rather than stop it, because complete rest costs you fitness and rarely fixes the underlying restriction. If a movement genuinely needs to come out for a while, you will be told which one, why, and roughly for how long.
I have a herniated disc. Is spinal decompression going to work for me?
For the right presentation it works well, and for the wrong one it wastes months. Roughly one in three people who ask for decompression need something else first. It suits contained disc problems with a mechanical pattern; it is not the answer for advanced degeneration, instability, or symptoms that point to nerve compromise needing imaging. That is a candidacy question, and it is why we screen for it rather than sell it.
How is this different from the physical therapy that only worked for a while?
Often it is not different in kind — good rehab is part of what we do here, and if you need more of it than we provide we will say so. The common reason a previous course faded is that it strengthened around a joint that never regained its motion. Restore the motion, then load it, and it tends to hold. Also: we take baseline measurements and re-test them, so a plateau is visible early rather than discovered after three months.
Do I need an MRI first?
Not usually. Imaging is worth doing when the examination raises something specific, when we are considering decompression for a disc, or when there are signs that need ruling out. Scanning first tends to find findings that everybody your age has, which then get blamed for a problem they are not causing.
How long before I know whether this is working?
You should have a meaningful change within the first few weeks and a re-test around week eight. If the measurements are not moving by then, the plan changes or you get referred. We would rather tell you that than keep booking you.
Get a straight answer about the old injury
An examination in Marietta that ends with an explanation, measurable baselines, and a plan with a date on it.