When Jack Manzella’s wife Patty had chronic back pain after a tumor was removed from her back almost 15 years ago, he did what he could to help her feel better.

But Manzella, a chiropractor, couldn’t do enough all on his own.

Years later, Manzella started looking into a machine that’s been on the market for only about five years.

Manzella, the chiropractor at Bangor Family Chiropractic, recently spent about $100,000 to buy a DRX 9000, a decompression machine that helps people with herniated discs, facet syndrome, sciatica and degenerative disc disease. It can also help people for whom surgery was unsuccessful.

The machine uses two harnesses to gradually pull at the patient’s back to achieve decompression in the spine. The patient is not supposed to feel any pain from the treatments.

The process takes about 30 minutes.

Manzella charges $4,000 for the 20 treatments over a five- to six-week span. The cost includes exams, a $300 belt the patient is supposed to wear at all times for the first two weeks and ice packs that go on the back after the treatment.

He said his primary reason for getting the machine was to help his wife — who’s feeling better after a few treatments — but he also wanted to help other patients who didn’t find success with a chiropractor, physical therapy or medical interventions.

“It’s for the ones who can’t be helped by anything else,” Manzella said.

The machine, which was successful in 86 percent of clinical studies, brings hope to people with chronic back pain, Manzella said.

“It’s frustrating when you’re not able to help,” Manzella said.

As far as he knows, he’s the only chiropractor in the region to have the machine, and one of only seven in the state.

He said while he recognizes people might consider Bangor too small of a small town to have such a machine in, people from farther away might still travel to the office because of the convenience of Interstate 90.

“I think there’s a population here that can support this kind of thing,” Manzella said.