Re: Neck pulling machine????

1. Prevention: Cervical spine - 1. Keep your chin up. Pretend you're rich and famous and look down your nose at everybody. 2. Don't flex the head toward the chest. 3. Use the right pillows. Experiment with this. Whatever works for you. The general rule for sleeping is when laying on your side your nose should line up with your belly button. On your back a small soft pillow and if you sleep on your stomach position your pillows so your neck isn't cranked way around one way or the other.

The cervical spine is very sensitive to the health of the organs, most importantly the liver. The neck doesn't hypermove when the liver is compromised it locks up.

Also some of that noise you hear coming from the neck IS the neck re-adaping to normal. The stuctures WANT to be in their normal position so they tend to stay there once adjusted. The body will fine-tune what us chiropractors do.

2&3. Traction devices. Very helpful if used correctly. Will solve any slipped disc problem. If the disc is ruptured it won't help but it won't hurt either. Cervical traction is the harness that goes under your chin and pulls your head up. Again, if done correctly very good for slipped discs. I don't suggest prolonged traction though. It sounds like the guy you're going to knows what he's doing so just follow his instructions.

The Lumbar distraction table is called a Cox table and is very good at any lumbar slipped disc. They tend to overuse it though which can lead to more serious problems. I couple the lumbar distraction up with the Thompson tables drop pieces and reestablish the normal forward curve after I've distracted the spine. The disc will slip right back out of place if the vertebra are not corrected.

The key to keeping a mechanically healthy lumbar or cervical spine is to do what's necesary to maintain the normal forward curve in both. You'll be surprised how strong the spine can get with a few simple exercises.

For the lumbar spine the key to keeping the forward curve is to make sure your Hamstrings are stretched everynight before you go to bed. The hamstrings are the muscles on the back of your legs. They tend to tighten up because we sit too much and bend too much. Which tends to flatten the lumbar spine thus making it suseptable to disc protrusion.

To stretch the hamstrings put your foot up on a chair and your hands on top of the thigh. Bend from where your leg goes into you hip - not your back, and flatten your leg out with a gentle push with your hands. Hold for about 10 seconds and do the other leg. Do 4 reps. If still tight wait 15 minute and do it again. Do before bed everynight. This will allow the lumbar spine to return to it's normal forward curve while you sleep and goes a long way to make it really strong.

The cervical spine is easy. Keep your chin up. Make sure your computer screen is eye level. Of course you have to look down to do most of what there is to do in life so develop a little habit of every now and then just get your chin up and roll your head from side to side. There's much less mass in the cervical spine than the lumbar spine so it's pretty easy. And with the cervical spine check you pillow. I see more bad necks from the wrong pillows than anything else.

For the girls, sleep with a pillow between your knees. This keeps the top leg from pulling your hip out of place.

That should about do it. Thanks for the questions.

Doc Sutter