McHenry Chiropractic Care Respects Spinal Extension

Extension of the spine: It’s good. It is bad. So what’s with extension for the spine? Both are accurate: It’s good. It’s bad. It is the job of your McHenry chiropractor to help you decide the role of extension for your McHenry back pain relief plan and McHenry back pain control plan in the future. Your McHenry chiropractor at OrthoIllinois Chiropractic is well experienced 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 presses on the spinal nerves resulting in pain. Flexion often allows the disc bulge to move off of the nerve. Extension often permits the disc bulge to compress the nerves more. OrthoIllinois Chiropractic wants to help lessen 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) 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. McHenry chiropractic patients need beneficial extension!

SPINAL EXTENSION

OrthoIllinois Chiropractic respects extension and gets how it may help and hurt. 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 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 narrowed the vertebral canal producing stenosis. (2) In a degenerative lumbar spine with spinal stenosis, flexion opened the vertebral canal and reduced pain while extension exacerbated the stenosis and triggered pain. (3) OrthoIllinois Chiropractic knows the key to getting the benefits of extension is in knowing when to apply extension.

McHenry CHIROPRACTIC USE OF EXTENSION

McHenry chiropractic treatment integrates extension into the McHenry 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) Reducing intradiscal pressures and back pain is what OrthoIllinois Chiropractic does for its McHenry back pain patients.

CONTACT OrthoIllinois Chiropractic

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 McHenry chiropractic appointment with OrthoIllinois Chiropractic today. Let’s discover the role extension might play in your back pain recovery and future back pain control plan.