In 1994, I suffered a severe herniated disc. I was unable to lift my hands above my shoulders. The disc between the fourth and fifth cervical vertebrae had herniated. It compressed my spinal cord and caused severe shoulder and arm pain. Treatment included neck tracton - lying on a table with my head in a restraint (similar to that shown below). A 30 pound cyclic load was applied to my head for a half-hour of traction therapy. Although this provided relief from the pain, this was only temporary and the pain would return within a few hours of the treatment. I still could not sleep.

My physical therapist recommended several home neck traction units to supplement my office treatments. Thy were either expensive, ineffective, or both. I purchased the inexpensive over the door unit, which gave me no relief and hurt my jaw after just 20 minutes of traction therapy. Since the unit delivered a constant pull, the maximum load recommended by the therapist was 18 pounds. This was ineffective as well. In order to increase to a higher load, the therapist said the load must be intermittently cycled.

Using my background as a mechanical engineer, I designed a device I could use at home that would comfortably support  my head and cycle the load in the same manner as the Physical Therapist in-office unit (priced at over $5,000). After using the device for the first time at home, I felt the same relief that I received from the in-office unit. The therapist gave me permission to use the home unit three times per day. Hoping to get a good nights sleep, I performed traction therapy prior to going to bed. The first night after using my device, I slept pain free. The physical therapists at the office were amazed at my improvement within just two days. I then began to use the unit regularly and would augment the physical therapist visits with my home traction device. With contined use of my home device, along with office therapy, I was able to relieve all of the pain and regained 100% of my mobility. Considering the severity of my herniation, the therapist did not believe this relief was possible without surgery. In fact, he said he had never seen anyone recover from a disc herniation as severe as mine without surgery. He was amazed at the rate my device accelerated the healing and recovery time.

Tony D'Amico - Inventor of CycleTrac