Ceragem V11 Says It Can Help Treat a Herniated Disc. Does Spinal Traction Really Work?
I was looking through the Ceragem Master V11 product page when one claim made me stop.
Ceragem lists “help in the treatment of herniated discs” among the V11’s six MFDS-certified effects. Its lumbar disc mode goes a step further, describing a process in which traction reduces pressure on the disc and helps a herniated disc return toward its proper position.
That is a much more interesting claim than simply saying the machine feels good on a sore back.
If part of a disc has pushed outward, can traction actually help move it back?
At first, I expected this to be a fairly easy claim to check. Either traction works or it doesn’t.
After reading the research, that turned out to be the wrong question.
There is evidence that spinal traction can physically change what happens inside the lumbar spine. There is also evidence that some patients with disc herniation feel better after traction.
The harder question is whether those findings mean that a herniated disc has actually been “put back into place.”
That distinction matters.
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What Does Ceragem V11 Actually Claim?
According to Ceragem’s Korean official store, the Master V11 includes a powered orthopedic traction system designed to help treat conditions including herniated discs and degenerative spinal stenosis.
The company also describes a dedicated lumbar disc mode.
According to that description, the mode reduces pressure applied to the lower back, or intradiscal pressure, to help restore a herniated disc toward its proper position.
There are really two different ideas packed into that explanation.
The first is mechanical:
Traction may reduce pressure and change the spacing between structures in the spine.
The second is anatomical:
That mechanical change may help the herniated disc itself move back.
The first idea is relatively easy to test.
The second requires stronger evidence.
A Herniated Disc Is Not Simply a Disc That “Slipped Out”
The phrase “slipped disc” makes the condition sound simpler than it really is.
Between the vertebrae are intervertebral discs that help absorb load and allow movement. With a disc herniation, disc material extends beyond its usual boundary and may irritate or compress a nearby nerve.
This can cause lower-back pain, leg pain, numbness, or other symptoms.
But pain and disc size are not the same measurement.
A patient can feel better because inflammation around a nerve decreases. The amount of pressure on a nerve can change. Movement may become less painful. The nervous system itself can become less sensitive over time.
None of those improvements necessarily proves that the herniated material has physically returned to its previous position.
That was the first point that changed how I looked at the V11 claim.
If we only measure pain, we are measuring how the patient feels.
If we want to know whether the disc itself moved, we need imaging.
Traction Does Produce Real Mechanical Changes
I initially thought the weakest part of the claim would be the basic idea of pulling on the spine.
It wasn’t.
Spinal traction is a real mechanical intervention. Depending on the technique, force is applied along the spine with the aim of creating separation between vertebral structures and reducing mechanical loading.
Researchers have even watched this happen inside an MRI scanner.
A 2015 study published in Radiology examined 48 patients with lumbar disc herniation while they received 30 kg of continuous lumbar traction.
MRI scans were taken before traction and repeatedly during the 30-minute treatment.
The researchers observed changes in disc shape, separation between some herniated discs and adjacent nerve roots, and reductions in herniated-disc volume while traction was being applied.
The lumbar spinal column also lengthened slightly.
Most strikingly, the reported mean disc-reduction ratio increased as traction continued — about 8.6% after 10 minutes, 15.2% after 20 minutes, and 17.9% after 30 minutes.
That result surprised me.
It means the idea that traction can mechanically change the shape of a herniated disc is not just something invented for an advertisement.
Something measurable can happen.
But the study also raises another question almost immediately:
What happens after the traction stops?
The MRI study primarily showed what was happening during continuous traction.
That is not quite the same thing as showing that a herniated disc has been permanently restored.
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Does Traction Actually Make Patients Feel Better?
Here, the evidence becomes somewhat stronger.
A 2020 systematic review and meta-analysis looked at randomized controlled trials involving adults whose herniated discs had been confirmed by MRI or CT.
Seven studies with a total of 403 participants were included.
Compared with sham traction or no traction, lumbar traction produced statistically greater improvements in both pain and function in the short term.
That sounds encouraging.
But the same analysis did not find sufficient evidence for long-term improvements in pain and function.
It also found insufficient evidence that traction reduces the size of the herniated disc itself.
That result is probably the most important piece of evidence for this claim.
Traction may help someone feel better.
That does not automatically tell us what happened to the disc.
A Newer Trial Makes the Story More Interesting
I also wanted to know whether the traction evidence had changed much since that meta-analysis.
A large randomized controlled trial published in 2025 included 424 patients with radicular pain caused by a matching disc herniation.
Both groups received medical treatment. One group also received lumbar traction.
Among the 388 participants included in the analysis, 62% of those receiving traction plus medical treatment achieved at least a 25% improvement in radicular pain after one month.
In the medical-treatment-only group, that figure was 51%.
The difference was statistically significant.
So I would not describe spinal traction as a treatment with “no evidence.”
There is evidence suggesting that it can provide additional symptom relief for at least some patients with disc-related radicular pain.
A 2022 meta-analysis also reported improvements in pain and disability when mechanical traction was compared with conventional physical therapy, although the included studies differed in methods and quality.
And a more recent systematic review found a large pooled effect for traction on pain and disability, but also reported very high heterogeneity between studies — a warning that different studies were producing very different results under different conditions.
So the clinical evidence is not perfectly clean.
But it is enough to make the discussion more nuanced than “traction works” versus “traction doesn’t work.”
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The Biggest Leap Is From “Less Pain” to “The Disc Went Back”
This is where I think the Ceragem claim becomes more difficult to evaluate.
There are at least three different levels of evidence here.
First: Can traction mechanically affect the spine?
Yes. Imaging studies suggest that it can.
Second: Can traction reduce symptoms in people with lumbar disc herniation?
There is reasonable evidence for short-term improvement in pain and function, although results vary across studies.
Third: Does traction reliably restore a herniated disc to its original position and keep it there?
That is where the evidence becomes much less convincing.
Some individual studies have reported reductions in herniated-disc size after traction. An older CT-based controlled study, for example, found a significant reduction in a herniation index in patients who received traction plus physical therapy compared with physical therapy alone.
So anatomical change is certainly possible.
But when the evidence was pooled in the 2020 systematic review, there still was not enough evidence to conclude that lumbar traction reliably reduces herniated-disc size.
That difference is important.
A study showing that something can happen is not the same as evidence showing that it reliably happens as a treatment effect.
And We Still Have to Come Back to the Ceragem V11
There is another layer to this.
Most of the studies above tested lumbar traction as a treatment category.
They did not test the Ceragem Master V11.
Ceragem’s official product information says the V11 includes a powered orthopedic traction device and lists help in treating herniated discs among its MFDS-certified effects. Its lumbar-disc mode description specifically states that reducing disc pressure can help restore a herniated disc toward its position.
But evidence for conventional or hospital-based lumbar traction cannot automatically be transferred to one specific home device.
The force can be different.
The body position can be different.
Treatment duration and frequency can be different.
Patient selection can be different.
The V11 also combines traction with other features, including heat and massage, which makes direct comparison even more difficult.
If I wanted to see strong evidence for the specific restoration claim, I would look for a controlled V11 study that included imaging before and after treatment.
Ideally, it would answer questions such as:
Did MRI or CT show a meaningful reduction in herniated-disc size?
Was the change greater than in a comparable control group?
Did the change remain after the treatment session ended?
And did anatomical improvement actually correlate with better symptoms?
Those are much harder questions than asking whether users reported less pain.
I could not find enough publicly available clinical evidence answering them specifically for the Master V11.
What Does This Mean If You’re Considering the V11?
I think there are two very different ways a consumer could read Ceragem’s claim.
One interpretation is:
“Traction may reduce mechanical loading around my spine and could help with symptoms from a herniated disc.”
There is scientific evidence that makes that interpretation plausible.
The other is:
“This machine will pull my herniated disc back into its original position.”
The current evidence does not support that interpretation nearly as strongly.
That does not mean the V11 cannot help someone.
It means the evidence is much stronger for possible symptom improvement and temporary mechanical changes than it is for reliable, lasting anatomical restoration of a herniated disc.
Ceragem itself also advises people with disc or other spinal conditions to consult a medical professional before using the product, and notes that results can vary by individual.
That seems particularly important here because “herniated disc” covers a wide range of conditions and severity.
Claim Verdict: Not Enough Evidence
This claim turned out to be more scientifically interesting than I expected.
The basic mechanism behind spinal traction is plausible.
MRI studies show that traction can temporarily change spinal geometry and even reduce the apparent volume of some herniated discs while force is being applied.
Randomized trials and meta-analyses also suggest that traction can improve pain and function for some patients, particularly in the short term.
So this is not a case where the underlying science falls apart.
The problem comes one step later.
Evidence that traction can change the spine or reduce pain is not yet the same as strong evidence that the Ceragem V11 can reliably return a herniated disc to its proper position and keep it there.
For that stronger interpretation, I would want to see better imaging-based clinical evidence using the V11 itself.
Claim Verdict: NOT ENOUGH EVIDENCE
There is real science behind traction.
There is some evidence behind symptom relief.
But the evidence becomes much thinner when the claim moves from “this may help your symptoms” to “this helps put the herniated disc back.”
That is where I think the current evidence stops.
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Sources Reviewed
Ceragem. Master V11 Official Product Information. Korean official website and official store.
Chung TS, Yang HE, Ahn SJ, Park JH. Herniated Lumbar Disks: Real-time MR Imaging Evaluation during Continuous Traction. Radiology. 2015;275(3):755–762. DOI: 10.1148/radiol.14141400.
Cheng YH, Hsu CY, Lin YN. The effect of mechanical traction on low back pain in patients with herniated intervertebral disks: a systematic review and meta-analysis. Clinical Rehabilitation. 2020;34(1):13–22. DOI: 10.1177/0269215519872528.
Wang W, Long F, Wu X, Li S, Lin J. Clinical Efficacy of Mechanical Traction as Physical Therapy for Lumbar Disc Herniation: A Meta-Analysis. 2022. DOI: 10.1155/2022/5670303.
Bernhard E, et al. Lumbar Tractions in Radicular Pain Caused by Herniated Disc: Randomised, Open-Label, Superiority, and Controlled Trial on 424 Participants. Journal of Clinical Medicine. 2025;14(15):5192. DOI: 10.3390/jcm14155192.
This article evaluates the scientific evidence behind a product claim and is not medical advice. Diagnosis and treatment of disc herniation should be discussed with a qualified healthcare professional.
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