Carrolltown Chiropractic Care Respects Spinal Extension
Extension of the spine: It’s valuable. It’s harmful. So what is up with spinal extension? Both are true: It’s good. It is bad. It’s the job of your Carrolltown chiropractor to help you determine the role of extension for your Carrolltown back pain relief plan and Carrolltown back pain control plan moving past the present episode of back pain. Your Carrolltown chiropractor at Gormish Chiropractic & Rehabilitation is well trained 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 concavely. 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 permits the disc bulge to get away from the nerve. Extension often allows the disc bulge to compress the nerves more. Gormish Chiropractic & Rehabilitation intends 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% occurs 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. Carrolltown chiropractic patients need beneficial extension!
SPINAL EXTENSION
Gormish Chiropractic & Rehabilitation respects extension and gets how it may help and hurt. 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 perform 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 narrowed the vertebral canal causing stenosis. (2) In a degenerative lumbar spine with spinal stenosis, flexion opened the vertebral canal and relieved pain while extension exacerbated the stenosis and caused pain. (3) Gormish Chiropractic & Rehabilitation knows the key to eliciting the benefits of extension is in recognizing when to use extension.
Carrolltown CHIROPRACTIC USE OF EXTENSION
Carrolltown chiropractic treatment integrates extension into the Carrolltown chiropractic treatment plan for its advantages. Cox® Technic used with 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 highest amount the transducer could measure). (4) Dropping intradiscal pressures and back pain is what Gormish Chiropractic & Rehabilitation aims to do for its Carrolltown back pain patients.
CONTACT Gormish Chiropractic & 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 Carrolltown chiropractic appointment with Gormish Chiropractic & Rehabilitation today. Let’s figure out the role extension might play in your back pain recovery and future back pain control strategy.
