Pflugerville Chiropractic Care Respects Spinal Extension

Extension of the spine: It is good. It is bad. So what is up with extension for the spine? Both are true: It is good. It’s bad. It is the job of your Pflugerville chiropractor to help you decide the role of extension for your Pflugerville back pain relief plan and Pflugerville back pain control plan in the future. Your Pflugerville chiropractor at Pflugerville Wellness Center is well trained 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 presses 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. Pflugerville Wellness Center 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) occurs 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. Pflugerville chiropractic patients need beneficial extension!

SPINAL EXTENSION

Pflugerville Wellness Center respects extension and gets how it may help and harm. 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 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 reduced disc protrusion and enlarges the sagittal diameter of the vertebral canal while extension made the disc herniation larger and narrowed the vertebral canal producing stenosis. (2) In a degenerative lumbar spine with spinal stenosis, flexion widened the vertebral canal and relieved pain while extension worsened the stenosis and triggered pain. (3) Pflugerville Wellness Center knows the key to eliciting the benefits of extension is in knowing when to apply extension.

Pflugerville CHIROPRACTIC USE OF EXTENSION

Pflugerville chiropractic treatment incorporates extension into the Pflugerville 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) Reducing intradiscal pressures and back pain is what Pflugerville Wellness Center aims to do for its Pflugerville back pain patients.

CONTACT Pflugerville Wellness Center

Listen to this PODCAST with Dr. David Atiyeh on the Back Doctor’s Podcast with Dr. Michael Johnson. He shares how he cared for 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 Pflugerville chiropractic appointment with Pflugerville Wellness Center today. Let us figure out the role extension might have in your back pain recovery and future back pain control plan.