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 true: It’s good. It’s bad. It is the job of your Plainville chiropractor to help you decide the role of extension in your Plainville back pain relief plan and Plainville back pain control plan in the future. Your Plainville chiropractor at Layden Chiropractic 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 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 resulting in pain. Flexion often allows the disc bulge to move off of the nerve. Extension often allows the disc bulge to press on the nerves more. Layden Chiropractic wants to help lessen painful situations like this!

SPINAL MOTION

75% of the flexion and extension movement in the low back occurs 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 occurs, and C4-C5 is where most of the extension occurs. 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 degenerate. (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 producing stenosis. (2) In a degenerative lumbar spine with spinal stenosis, flexion widened the vertebral canal and reduced pain while extension exacerbated the stenosis and produced pain. (3) Layden Chiropractic knows the key to getting the benefits of extension is in knowing when to use extension.

Plainville CHIROPRACTIC USE OF EXTENSION

Plainville chiropractic treatment integrates extension into the Plainville chiropractic treatment plan for its benefits. Cox® Technic used with 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 highest amount the transducer could measure). (4) Reducing 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 continues after multiple back surgeries with flexion distraction which relieves her pain as the table is flexed not extended.

Schedule your Plainville chiropractic appointment with Layden Chiropractic today. Let’s discover the role extension might play in your back pain recovery and future back pain control plan.