Elgin Chiropractic Care Respects Spinal Extension
Extension of the spine: It is good. It is bad. So what’s with extension for the spine? Both are accurate: It’s beneficial. It’s harmful. It is the job of your Elgin chiropractor to help you decide the role of extension for your Elgin back pain relief plan and Elgin back pain control plan in the future. Your Elgin chiropractor at Connected Chiropractic is well versed 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 presses on the spinal nerves resulting in pain. Flexion often permits the disc bulge to get away from the nerve. Extension often permits the disc bulge to compress the nerves more. Connected Chiropractic sets out to help lessen 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% 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 occurs. Elgin chiropractic patients need healthy extension!
SPINAL EXTENSION
Connected Chiropractic respects extension and understands how it may help and hurt. 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 do extension. Extension to a painful spine may be harmful. Why? In the cervical spine, flexion reduced disc protrusion and maximizes the sagittal diameter of the vertebral canal while extension made the disc herniation larger and constricted the vertebral canal producing stenosis. (2) In a degenerative lumbar spine with spinal stenosis, flexion widened the vertebral canal and reduced pain while extension worsened the stenosis and triggered pain. (3) Connected Chiropractic knows the key to eliciting the benefits of extension is in recognizing when to use extension.
Elgin CHIROPRACTIC USE OF EXTENSION
Elgin chiropractic treatment incorporates extension into the Elgin chiropractic treatment plan for its benefits. 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 escalated pressures in the lumbar spine to 1250 mmHg (the most the transducer could measure). (4) Dropping intradiscal pressures and back pain is what Connected Chiropractic does for its Elgin back pain patients.
CONTACT Connected Chiropractic
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 gives her relief as the table is flexed not extended.
Schedule your Elgin chiropractic appointment with Connected Chiropractic today. Let us discover the role extension might have in your back pain recovery and future back pain control strategy.
