Montreal Chiropractic Care Respects Spinal Extension
Extension of the spine: It is good. It’s bad. So what’s with extension for the spine? Both are true: It is good. It’s bad. It’s the job of your Montreal chiropractor to help you figure out the role of extension for your Montreal back pain relief plan and Montreal back pain control plan getting past the existing episode of back pain. Your Montreal chiropractor at Dr. Hoang's Chiropractic Clinic 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 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 pushes on the spinal nerves resulting in pain. Flexion often allows the disc bulge to get away from the nerve. Extension often permits the disc bulge to compress the nerves more. Dr. Hoang's Chiropractic Clinic wants to help decrease 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% occurs 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) 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 takes place. Montreal chiropractic patients need healthy extension!
SPINAL EXTENSION
Dr. Hoang's Chiropractic Clinic respects extension and understands how it may help and harm. 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 maximizes 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 reduced pain while extension worsened the stenosis and produced pain. (3) Dr. Hoang's Chiropractic Clinic knows the key to eliciting the benefits of extension is in recognizing when to apply extension.
Montreal CHIROPRACTIC USE OF EXTENSION
Montreal chiropractic treatment integrates extension into the Montreal chiropractic treatment plan for its benefits. Cox® Technic applied to the cervical spine reduced 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 Dr. Hoang's Chiropractic Clinic does for its Montreal back pain patients.
CONTACT Dr. Hoang's Chiropractic Clinic
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 continues after multiple back surgeries with flexion distraction which relieves her pain as the table is flexed not extended.
Schedule your Montreal chiropractic appointment with Dr. Hoang's Chiropractic Clinic today. Let’s discover the role extension might play in your back pain recovery and future back pain control plan.
