Severna Park Chiropractic Care Respects Spinal Extension

Extension of the spine: It’s valuable. It is harmful. So what’s with extension for the spine? Both are true: It’s good. It’s bad. It is the job of your Severna Park chiropractor to help you figure out the role of extension for your Severna Park back pain relief plan and Severna Park back pain control plan in the future. Your Severna Park chiropractor at Back And Neck Care Center is well trained 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 prominent 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 get away from the nerve. Extension often permits the disc bulge to compress the nerves more. Back And Neck Care Center wants to help decrease 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% 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) 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 takes place. Severna Park chiropractic patients need healthy extension!

SPINAL EXTENSION

Back And Neck Care Center respects extension and understands 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 essential for this when the spine is healthy enough to perform 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 caused pain. (3) Back And Neck Care Center understands the key to getting the benefits of extension is in knowing when to use extension.

Severna Park CHIROPRACTIC USE OF EXTENSION

Severna Park chiropractic treatment incorporates extension into the Severna Park chiropractic treatment plan for its advantages. Cox® Technic used with the cervical spine dropped 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) Reducing intradiscal pressures and back pain is what Back And Neck Care Center does for its Severna Park back pain patients.

CONTACT Back And Neck Care Center

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 gives her relief as the table is flexed not extended.

Schedule your Severna Park chiropractic appointment with Back And Neck Care Center today. Let us discover the role extension might have in your back pain recovery and future back pain control strategy.