Manahawkin Chiropractic Care Respects Spinal Extension

Extension of the spine: It’s beneficial. It is harmful. So what’s with spinal extension? Both are true: It’s good. It’s bad. It is the job of your Manahawkin chiropractor to help you determine the role of extension for your Manahawkin back pain relief plan and Manahawkin back pain control plan in the future. Your Manahawkin chiropractor at Manahawkin Chiropractic Center is well experienced 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 prominent 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 causing pain. Flexion often permits the disc bulge to get away from the nerve. Extension often permits the disc bulge to compress the nerves more. Manahawkin Chiropractic Center 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% happens 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 occurs, and C4-C5 is where most of the extension occurs. Manahawkin chiropractic patients need healthy extension!

SPINAL EXTENSION

Manahawkin Chiropractic Center 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 perform extension. Extension to a painful spine may hurt. 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 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 exacerbated the stenosis and triggered pain. (3) Manahawkin Chiropractic Center knows the key to getting the benefits of extension is in knowing when to use extension.

Manahawkin CHIROPRACTIC USE OF EXTENSION

Manahawkin chiropractic treatment integrates extension into the Manahawkin 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 escalated pressures in the lumbar spine to 1250 mmHg (the highest amount the transducer could measure). (4) Reducing intradiscal pressures and back pain is what Manahawkin Chiropractic Center does for its Manahawkin back pain patients.

CONTACT Manahawkin Chiropractic 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 continues after multiple back surgeries with flexion distraction which relieves her pain as the table is flexed not extended.

Schedule your Manahawkin chiropractic appointment with Manahawkin Chiropractic Center today. Let us discover the role extension might play in your back pain recovery and future back pain control plan.