Fort Wayne Chiropractic Care Respects Spinal Extension
Extension of the spine: It is good. It is bad. So what’s with spinal extension? Both are accurate: It is valuable. It’s harmful. It is the job of your Fort Wayne chiropractor to help you establish the role of extension in your Fort Wayne back pain relief plan and Fort Wayne back pain control plan in the future. Your Fort Wayne chiropractor at Aaron Chiropractic Clinic 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 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 presses on the spinal nerves causing pain. Flexion often allows the disc bulge to move off of the nerve. Extension often allows the disc bulge to compress the nerves more. Aaron Chiropractic Clinic 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% 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) occurs 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. Fort Wayne chiropractic patients need beneficial extension!
SPINAL EXTENSION
Aaron Chiropractic Clinic respects extension and gets how it may help 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 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 triggered pain. (3) Aaron Chiropractic Clinic knows the key to eliciting the benefits of extension is in knowing when to apply extension.
Fort Wayne CHIROPRACTIC USE OF EXTENSION
Fort Wayne chiropractic treatment integrates extension into the Fort Wayne chiropractic treatment plan for its benefits. 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 most the transducer could measure). (4) Reducing intradiscal pressures and back pain is what Aaron Chiropractic Clinic does for its Fort Wayne back pain patients.
CONTACT Aaron Chiropractic Clinic
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 gives her relief as the table is flexed not extended.
Schedule your Fort Wayne chiropractic appointment with Aaron Chiropractic Clinic today. Let’s discover the role extension might play in your back pain recovery and future back pain control plan.
