San Jose Chiropractic Care Respects Spinal Extension

Extension of the spine: It’s valuable. It is harmful. So what’s with spinal extension? Both are true: It’s good. It’s bad. It is the job of your San Jose chiropractor to help you establish the role of extension in your San Jose back pain relief plan and San Jose back pain control plan in the future. Your San Jose chiropractor at Chiropractic Solutions 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 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 move off of the nerve. Extension often allows the disc bulge to press on the nerves more. Chiropractic Solutions wants 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% is 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. San Jose chiropractic patients need healthy extension!

SPINAL EXTENSION

Chiropractic Solutions respects extension and understands how it may benefit 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 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 increased the disc protrusion and constricted the vertebral canal causing stenosis. (2) In a degenerative lumbar spine with spinal stenosis, flexion widened the vertebral canal and relieved pain while extension exacerbated the stenosis and produced pain. (3) Chiropractic Solutions knows the key to getting the benefits of extension is in recognizing when to use extension.

San Jose CHIROPRACTIC USE OF EXTENSION

San Jose chiropractic treatment incorporates extension into the San Jose chiropractic treatment plan for its advantages. 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 increased pressures in the lumbar spine to 1250 mmHg (the most the transducer could measure). (4) Reducing intradiscal pressures and back pain is what Chiropractic Solutions aims to do for its San Jose back pain patients.

CONTACT Chiropractic Solutions

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 gives her relief as the table is flexed not extended.

Schedule your San Jose chiropractic appointment with Chiropractic Solutions today. Let us explore the role extension might have in your back pain recovery and future back pain control strategy.