Millville Chiropractic Care Respects Spinal Extension

Extension of the spine: It’s good. It is bad. So what is up with extension for the spine? Both are true: It’s valuable. It is harmful. It’s the job of your Millville chiropractor to help you decide the role of extension for your Millville back pain relief plan and Millville back pain control plan getting past the existing episode of back pain. Your Millville chiropractor at Wilson Family Chiropractic is well experienced 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 presses on the spinal nerves causing pain. Flexion usually permits the disc bulge to get away from the nerve. Extension often permits the disc bulge to press on the nerves more. Wilson Family Chiropractic sets out to help lessen 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% is 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) 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. Millville chiropractic patients need healthy extension!

SPINAL EXTENSION

Wilson Family Chiropractic respects extension and understands 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 essential 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 increased the disc protrusion 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 produced pain. (3) Wilson Family Chiropractic knows the key to eliciting the benefits of extension is in knowing when to use extension.

Millville CHIROPRACTIC USE OF EXTENSION

Millville chiropractic treatment incorporates extension into the Millville chiropractic treatment plan for its advantages. 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 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 Wilson Family Chiropractic aims to do for its Millville back pain patients.

CONTACT Wilson Family 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 persists after multiple back surgeries with flexion distraction which relieves her pain as the table is flexed not extended.

Schedule your Millville chiropractic appointment with Wilson Family Chiropractic today. Let’s explore the role extension might play in your back pain recovery and future back pain control strategy.