Tonawanda Chiropractic Care Respects Spinal Extension
Extension of the spine: It’s good. It is bad. So what’s with spinal extension? Both are true: It’s beneficial. It is harmful. It’s the job of your Tonawanda chiropractor to help you determine the role of extension in your Tonawanda back pain relief plan and Tonawanda back pain control plan getting past the present episode of back pain. Your Tonawanda chiropractor at Chiropractic Spine Sports And Rehabilitation is well versed in the effects – good and bad – of spinal extension and respects its role in spinal health and mobility.
SPINAL CURVES
Two of the spine’s most prominent 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 presses on the spinal nerves resulting in pain. Flexion usually allows the disc bulge to get away from the nerve. Extension often permits the disc bulge to press on the nerves more. Chiropractic Spine Sports And Rehabilitation wants to help decrease painful situations like this!
SPINAL MOTION
75% of the flexion and extension movement in the low back is 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) happens 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 occurs. Tonawanda chiropractic patients need beneficial extension!
SPINAL EXTENSION
Chiropractic Spine Sports And Rehabilitation respects extension and gets how it may benefit and harm. The extensor muscles in the back weaken and degenerate just like discs do. (1) Extension helps strengthen these muscles to support the spine. Extension is necessary for this when the spine is healthy enough to perform extension. Extension to a painful spine may be harmful. Why? In the cervical spine, flexion decreased disc protrusion and enlarges the sagittal diameter of the vertebral canal while extension increased the disc protrusion and narrowed the vertebral canal causing stenosis. (2) In a degenerative lumbar spine with spinal stenosis, flexion widened the vertebral canal and relieved pain while extension worsened the stenosis and produced pain. (3) Chiropractic Spine Sports And Rehabilitation understands the key to eliciting the benefits of extension is in knowing when to apply extension.
Tonawanda CHIROPRACTIC USE OF EXTENSION
Tonawanda chiropractic treatment integrates extension into the Tonawanda chiropractic treatment plan for its benefits. Cox® Technic applied to the cervical spine dropped 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 most the transducer could measure). (4) Dropping intradiscal pressures and back pain is what Chiropractic Spine Sports And Rehabilitation does for its Tonawanda back pain patients.
CONTACT Chiropractic Spine Sports And Rehabilitation
Listen to this PODCAST with Dr. David Atiyeh on the Back Doctor’s Podcast with Dr. Michael Johnson. He shares how he cared for a patient whose back pain continues after multiple back surgeries with flexion distraction which relieves her pain as the table is flexed not extended.
Schedule your Tonawanda chiropractic appointment with Chiropractic Spine Sports And Rehabilitation today. Let us figure out the role extension might play in your back pain recovery and future back pain control plan.
