Plainville Chiropractic Care Respects Spinal Extension
Extension of the spine: It is good. It is bad. So what is up with spinal extension? Both are accurate: It is valuable. It’s harmful. It is the job of your Plainville chiropractor to help you determine the role of extension for your Plainville back pain relief plan and Plainville back pain control plan getting past the current episode of back pain. Your Plainville chiropractor at Layden Chiropractic is well experienced in the effects – good and bad – of spinal extension and respects its role in spinal health and motion.
SPINAL CURVES
Two of the spine’s most noticeable curves – the cervical and lumbar curves – are lordotic curves meaning they curve inwardly. Flexion flattens these curves. Extension magnifies them. When a disc herniates or bulges, it does so into the concavity of the curve and potentially pushes on the spinal nerves causing pain. Flexion often allows the disc bulge to get away from the nerve. Extension often permits the disc bulge to press on the nerves more. Layden Chiropractic sets out to help decrease painful situations like this!
SPINAL MOTION
75% of the flexion and extension movement in the low back happens at the L5-S1 level of the lumbar spine. 20% is at the L4-L5 level. Therefore, 95% of flexion and extension of the lumbar spine happens at these two lower disc levels. Here, degenerative disc disease (minor and more advanced) occurs most. In the cervical spine, C5-C6 is the spinal level where most of the flexion takes place, and C4-C5 is where most of the extension takes place. Plainville chiropractic patients need beneficial extension!
SPINAL EXTENSION
Layden Chiropractic respects extension and gets how it may help and harm. The extensor muscles in the back weaken and degenerate just as discs do. (1) Extension helps strengthen these muscles to support the spine. Extension is necessary for this when the spine is healthy enough to do extension. Extension to a painful spine may hurt. Why? In the cervical spine, flexion reduced disc protrusion and enlarges the sagittal diameter of the vertebral canal while extension made the disc herniation larger and constricted the vertebral canal causing stenosis. (2) In a degenerative lumbar spine with spinal stenosis, flexion widened the vertebral canal and relieved pain while extension exacerbated the stenosis and triggered pain. (3) Layden Chiropractic knows the key to getting the benefits of extension is in recognizing when to use extension.
Plainville CHIROPRACTIC USE OF EXTENSION
Plainville chiropractic treatment incorporates extension into the Plainville chiropractic treatment plan for its advantages. Cox® Technic applied to the cervical spine reduced intradiscal pressures to as low as 502 mmHg (4) and to as low as -192 mmHg in the lumbar spine. (5) Extension increased pressures in the lumbar spine to 1250 mmHg (the highest amount the transducer could measure). (4) Dropping intradiscal pressures and back pain is what Layden Chiropractic does for its Plainville back pain patients.
CONTACT Layden Chiropractic
Listen to this PODCAST with Dr. David Atiyeh on the Back Doctor’s Podcast with Dr. Michael Johnson. He shares how he helped a patient whose back pain persists after multiple back surgeries with flexion distraction which gives her relief as the table is flexed not extended.
Schedule your Plainville chiropractic appointment with Layden Chiropractic today. Let us discover the role extension might have in your back pain recovery and future back pain control plan.
