Disc Injury Treatment in Colorado Springs
The McKenzie Method
The McKenzie Method is a patented, critically-acclaimed method of assessing and treating spinal and extremity pain. It was developed by Dr. Robin McKenzie — a New Zealand physiotherapist — in the late 1950s and is now widely used all around the world.
While the McKenzie Method may involve a set of exercises that you can do on your own, this is generally a program of evaluation, treatment, and prevention strategies that are best conducted and learned with a McKenzie-certified physician like your chiropractor..
How Does the McKenzie Method Work?
The McKenzie approach uses specialized exercises to extend your spine, which helps centralize the pain by moving it from the extremities (arms or legs) to your back. This method assumes that back pain can be tolerated more than leg or arm pain, and centralizing the pain allows your specialist to treat the source rather than the symptoms.
The McKenzie Method aims for providing pain relief and rehabilitation through self-healing. It’s all-natural, meaning it doesn’t involve any passive modalities like ultrasound, heat, cold, drugs, or needles.
What Can the McKenzie Method Do for You?
The McKenzie method’s long-term goal is to teach people suffering from back and neck pain how to treat their conditions with exercises and other treatment.
The exercises reposition your displaced intervertebral discs by using gravity to draw the discs back into position. To facilitate proper disc movement, you must maintain relaxed and even breathing when performing the exercises.
The stages of McKenzie exercises include prone lying, prone props, prone press-ups, progressive extension with pillows, as well as standing extension. However, because each patient experiences a different type of back/neck pain, there are numerous variations of this sequence.
The stages are based on the identified directional preference of movements which refers to the particular direction that returns the range of motion to normal. For example, if your pain is from bulging discs, your clinicians will prescribe gentle cobra extension exercises that extend your lower back to drive pressure on the disc bulge and create a suction to centralize the disc.
With these exercises, you get to:
- Reduce pain quickly
- Restore your range of motion
- Minimize the risk of recurring pain by avoiding awkward postures
If you have chronic neck or back pain you may not work through all the exercises right away. Your specialist should help you with this.
Find Quick Relief with the McKenzie Method in Colorado Springs
At Smith Chiropractic, we utilize the McKenzie Method to provide relief for bulging discs, radiating leg and arm pain, numbness, and other extremity issues. We teach the entire range of diagnostic and therapeutic routines offered by the method.
Spinal Decompression
For patients with swollen or bulging discs, this allows traction of the cervical or lumbar spine which allows a joint to decompress, causing a vacuum where the disc is allowed to return to its normal space. This decreases the bulge or pressure on the nerve roots. It also actively increases the intervertebral foramen allowing nerve pressure to decrease. This greatly aids patients that are suffering from joint pain, bulging discs, radiating arm or leg pain, and numbness.
If you’d like to learn more about the McKenzie Method and Spinal Decompression for neck and back pain, schedule an appointment online or call us at (719) 390-5404.
