I'm a doctor, my wife is a physical therapist. I've got some arthritis L4-L5-S1. In an effort to get ready for ski season, I wrecked my lower back doing the core synergistics and yoga in p90x. I tried to (snow) ski on it and ended up not being able to weight bear. I tried a chiropractor (friend of mine and valedictorian of his class) who first got my SI joints and vertebrae back in line a (helped a lot and relieved spasm of the para spinal muscles) but then ended up putting me on a rack. Like inversion it puts traction on my lumbar spine, separates the vertebrae then he pulls it side to side. He has also an inversion rack but didn't use it on me. I never really had any neurological symptoms but I was really happy with the results of his treatment. I'm back to my chronic baseline, I still make some noise when I bend over but can generally stretch it out. I made it out skiing by Mid January and got 250k vertical feet in before the season ended (today). I still go back for an occasional touch up. Yes there's precious little hard data for any of these treatments but its worth a try and sure beats surgery.