Cianci Chiropractic Center Success Stories

Spinal Decompression Eases Legacy Of Pain

Authored by Bruce Hotchkiss

Bruce, who has since passed, was a friend of Dr. Cianci, a patient, a significant chiropractic advocate, and one heck of a journalistic writer.

Perhaps it was that car accident many years ago. Jim Vermilye was 18 years old.

He got pretty well banged up. About two years later, he began feeling some discomfort in his lower back, he recalls.

For a while, it went away but then it began to swell into pain, often constant pain. Vermilye, now 43, dealt with it, lived with it, for more than two decades until last summer, when he walked into the office of Easton chiropractor Dr. Christopher Cianci.

Vermilye is senior vice president of Wye Financial and Trust, formerly Wye Financial Services, on Washington Street in downtown Easton, a firm which he founded in 2002.

Although a native of Easton, he and his family – wife, D’Ann, a paralegal in Baltimore, and their two children, Molly, 6, and Jay, 3 — live in Annapolis.

Vermilye is a reverse commuter, driving east in the morning and back across the Bay Bridge at workday’s end. The drive did nothing to ease what Vermilye refers to, rather modestly, as his “lower back issues.”

Ultimately, he would seek relief. Physicians confirmed he had a herniated disc with the involvement of the sciatic nerve. Physical therapy and cortisone shots were prescribed.

“The first shot helped, for a while,” Vermilye said. “I had another one. It did nothing.”

The pain magnified. “It was constant,” Vermilye said. “I could barely walk.”

A friend urged him to have chiropractic care and referred him to Dr. Cianci. His first appointment was last August.

After a thorough evaluation, Dr. Cianci devised a plan for Jim that included specific chiropractic adjustments and spinal decompression therapy.

“Jim intended to avoid spinal surgery at all costs,” Dr. Cianci said, “and spinal decompression works very well for spinal disc problems and in back and neck.”

In that treatment, a patient is placed on a specialized computer-controlled table, which places gentle traction on the spine, which, in turn, decompresses the discs and relieves the nerve pressure imposed by those bulging discs.

“We see a lot of patients with problems in the neck area, which translate often into pain and weakness in the shoulders and the arms, and with lumbar disc problems which radiate pain from the lower back to the hip and the sciatic nerve,” Dr. Cianci said.

“In many cases where the discomfort has become chronic, as in Jim’s case,” Dr. Cianci continued, “we discover an event, or events, that can be linked to the spinal disc failure.

“Perhaps there was an injury many years and the healing simply went wrong in some way. When that happens, things just fester until eventually, the disc fails.”

“It is on those patients, spinal decompression is often very successful,” he added.

Vermilye carries his large frame easily now as he greets a visitor in the handsome offices of Wye Financial and Trust and leans back, with no apparent discomfort, in a conference room chair.

“Oh,” he commented in reference to the ‘lower back issues,’ “It’s not perfect but the constant pain is gone.”

Vermilye is committed to his appointment schedule with Dr. Cianci.

“If I miss it for a week, I know it,” he said.

Cianci Chiropractic, located at 8737 Brooks Drive in the Easton Industrial Park can help keep you on a healthy path.
Contact Cianci Chiropractic at 410-820-4070. You can also find Cianci Chiropractic online at www.drcianci.com.

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