What is flexion distraction therapy?
How's everybody doing out there? It's Dr. Carlock at the Village Family Clinic. So I wanted to explain to you a little something today about flexion distraction. And what that is some of you probably wonder why when you come here and lay down, why that table moves up and down, right? It's not just a fancy way to get you relaxed. What it does is ... If you see here. So what it does is, so look, take a picture of your joint. So you have your bones and the disc in there. Your disc is one of the only regions of the body without its own blood supply, so for it to get the nutrients at its needs, the joints have got to be moving to pump the fluid in and hydrate the disc. So this motion is actually helping that happen, it helps hydrate the discs, take some pressure off the lower back, takes some pressure off the nerves, and really stretches those muscles out.
So a demonstration real quick. Allie, you want to lay down on the table? So perform a mechanical traction, and what it's doing is it's spreading apart each joint in the lower back, and a lot of times you'll notice we'll press on certain joints to really reinforce that stretch in that specific joint. So we usually do it up and down the spine, and it also gives us this motion, the ability to ... Some myofascia release in the muscle, loosen up the muscle a little bit, and we can even move the table left and right depending on where the nervous pinched to give more open space over there too.
So hope that answers some of your questions about the flexion distraction and what these fancy tables do. Have a good day. Hope to see you back in the office soon.
