Groton Chiropractic Care Respects Spinal Extension
Extension of the spine: It is beneficial. 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 Groton chiropractor to help you decide the role of extension for your Groton back pain relief plan and Groton back pain control plan in the future. Your Groton chiropractor at Shoreline Medical Services/ Hutter Chiropractic Office 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 usually allows the disc bulge to get away from the nerve. Extension often allows the disc bulge to press on the nerves more. Shoreline Medical Services/ Hutter Chiropractic Office intends 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% 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. Groton chiropractic patients need healthy extension!
SPINAL EXTENSION
Shoreline Medical Services/ Hutter Chiropractic Office respects extension and understands how it may benefit and hurt. 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 essential 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 increased the disc protrusion and narrowed the vertebral canal causing stenosis. (2) In a degenerative lumbar spine with spinal stenosis, flexion widened the vertebral canal and relieved pain while extension worsened the stenosis and produced pain. (3) Shoreline Medical Services/ Hutter Chiropractic Office knows the key to eliciting the benefits of extension is in recognizing when to apply extension.
Groton CHIROPRACTIC USE OF EXTENSION
Groton chiropractic treatment incorporates extension into the Groton 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 most the transducer could measure). (4) Reducing intradiscal pressures and back pain is what Shoreline Medical Services/ Hutter Chiropractic Office does for its Groton back pain patients.
CONTACT Shoreline Medical Services/ Hutter Chiropractic Office
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 Groton chiropractic appointment with Shoreline Medical Services/ Hutter Chiropractic Office today. Let us figure out the role extension might have in your back pain recovery and future back pain control plan.
