Vancouver Chiropractic Care Respects Spinal Extension
Extension of the spine: It is beneficial. It is harmful. So what’s with spinal extension? Both are accurate: It’s good. It’s bad. It is the job of your Vancouver chiropractor to help you figure out the role of extension in your Vancouver back pain relief plan and Vancouver back pain control plan moving past the existing episode of back pain. Your Vancouver chiropractor at Vancouver Disc Centers is well experienced 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 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 resulting in 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. Vancouver Disc Centers sets out to help reduce 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 occurs 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. Vancouver chiropractic patients need beneficial extension!
SPINAL EXTENSION
Vancouver Disc Centers respects extension and gets how it may help and hurt. The extensor muscles in the back weaken and degenerate just like 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 be harmful. 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 opened the vertebral canal and relieved pain while extension worsened the stenosis and triggered pain. (3) Vancouver Disc Centers understands the key to eliciting the benefits of extension is in knowing when to apply extension.
Vancouver CHIROPRACTIC USE OF EXTENSION
Vancouver chiropractic treatment incorporates extension into the Vancouver 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 most the transducer could measure). (4) Dropping intradiscal pressures and back pain is what Vancouver Disc Centers does for its Vancouver back pain patients.
CONTACT Vancouver Disc Centers
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 Vancouver chiropractic appointment with Vancouver Disc Centers today. Let’s figure out the role extension might play in your back pain recovery and future back pain control strategy.
