Sandy Springs Chiropractic Care Respects Spinal Extension

Extension of the spine: It’s beneficial. It is harmful. So what is up with spinal extension? Both are accurate: It’s good. It’s bad. It is the job of your Sandy Springs chiropractor to help you establish the role of extension for your Sandy Springs back pain relief plan and Sandy Springs back pain control plan in the future. Your Sandy Springs chiropractor at Cross Chiropractic Center is well versed 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 noticeable 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 allows the disc bulge to move off of the nerve. Extension often allows the disc bulge to press on the nerves more. Cross Chiropractic Center sets out to help reduce 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) 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. Sandy Springs chiropractic patients need healthy extension!

SPINAL EXTENSION

Cross Chiropractic Center respects extension and understands how it may benefit and harm. The extensor muscles in the back weaken and degenerate just as discs do. (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 hurt. Why? In the cervical spine, flexion decreased disc protrusion and maximizes the sagittal diameter of the vertebral canal while extension made the disc herniation larger and narrowed the vertebral canal causing stenosis. (2) In a degenerative lumbar spine with spinal stenosis, flexion opened the vertebral canal and reduced pain while extension worsened the stenosis and triggered pain. (3) Cross Chiropractic Center understands the key to eliciting the benefits of extension is in recognizing when to apply extension.

Sandy Springs CHIROPRACTIC USE OF EXTENSION

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

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

Schedule your Sandy Springs chiropractic appointment with Cross Chiropractic Center today. Let us figure out the role extension might have in your back pain recovery and future back pain control strategy.