Fernandina Beach Chiropractic Care Respects Spinal Extension

Extension of the spine: It’s good. It is bad. So what is up with spinal extension? Both are true: It is valuable. It’s harmful. It’s the job of your Fernandina Beach chiropractor to help you decide the role of extension in your Fernandina Beach back pain relief plan and Fernandina Beach back pain control plan in the future. Your Fernandina Beach chiropractor at Amelia Chiropractic Clinic is well trained 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 causing pain. Flexion often allows the disc bulge to get away from the nerve. Extension often allows the disc bulge to press on the nerves more. Amelia Chiropractic Clinic sets out 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% 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) occurs 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. Fernandina Beach chiropractic patients need beneficial extension!

SPINAL EXTENSION

Amelia Chiropractic Clinic respects extension and gets 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 be harmful. Why? In the cervical spine, flexion decreased disc protrusion and enlarges the sagittal diameter of the vertebral canal while extension increased the disc protrusion and constricted 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 caused pain. (3) Amelia Chiropractic Clinic knows the key to getting the benefits of extension is in recognizing when to use extension.

Fernandina Beach CHIROPRACTIC USE OF EXTENSION

Fernandina Beach chiropractic treatment incorporates extension into the Fernandina Beach 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 increased pressures in the lumbar spine to 1250 mmHg (the most the transducer could measure). (4) Dropping intradiscal pressures and back pain is what Amelia Chiropractic Clinic aims to do for its Fernandina Beach back pain patients.

CONTACT Amelia Chiropractic Clinic

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 Fernandina Beach chiropractic appointment with Amelia Chiropractic Clinic today. Let’s explore the role extension might have in your back pain recovery and future back pain control strategy.