Fort Wayne Chiropractic Care Respects Spinal Extension
Extension of the spine: It’s valuable. It’s harmful. So what’s with spinal extension? Both are true: It is valuable. It is harmful. It is the job of your Fort Wayne chiropractor to help you decide the role of extension for your Fort Wayne back pain relief plan and Fort Wayne back pain control plan in the future. Your Fort Wayne chiropractor at Cox Chiropractic Medicine Inc is well versed 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 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 causing pain. Flexion often allows the disc bulge to move off of the nerve. Extension often permits the disc bulge to press on the nerves more. Cox Chiropractic Medicine Inc intends to help decrease painful situations like this!
SPINAL MOTION
75% of the flexion and extension movement in the low back occurs 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 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
Cox Chiropractic Medicine Inc respects extension and gets how it may benefit and harm. The extensor muscles in the back weaken and degenerate just like discs do. (1) Extension helps strengthen these muscles to support the spine. Extension is necessary 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 decreased disc protrusion and maximizes the sagittal diameter of the vertebral canal while extension increased the disc protrusion and narrowed the vertebral canal producing stenosis. (2) In a degenerative lumbar spine with spinal stenosis, flexion opened the vertebral canal and reduced pain while extension exacerbated the stenosis and produced pain. (3) Cox Chiropractic Medicine Inc knows the key to getting the benefits of extension is in recognizing when to use extension.
Fort Wayne CHIROPRACTIC USE OF EXTENSION
Fort Wayne chiropractic treatment integrates extension into the Fort Wayne chiropractic treatment plan for its advantages. Cox® Technic applied to 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) Dropping intradiscal pressures and back pain is what Cox Chiropractic Medicine Inc aims to do for its Fort Wayne back pain patients.
CONTACT Cox Chiropractic Medicine Inc
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 Fort Wayne chiropractic appointment with Cox Chiropractic Medicine Inc today. Let us figure out the role extension might play in your back pain recovery and future back pain control plan.
