Today I wanted to discuss the difference between neck traction and true neck traction. You see, essentially if someone pulls you from your head, and someone pulls you from your feet at the same time, we are stretching the spine. What this does is open up the nerve holes on each side of the spine, taking pressure off these nerves.
Let's do a basic review of your anatomy so you get a better idea of what I'm talking about. The brain (your master control), sits at the top and gives off a big branch that goes down the spine. This big branch I'm referring to is the spinal cord. Off that comes nerve root (a bundle of nerves), to nerves, to smaller and smaller nerves, to everywhere in the body.
When we stretch or traction the spine it the nerve holes or intervertebral foramen that open up. This also helps unwanted inflammation dissipate out of those regions. Most of the time it's a combination of things that clog up those foramen. Misalignment, disc material, degeneration, and inflammation.
Misalignment or shifting of a bone on top of another, you can imagine, will change that space the nerves come out of. Continued misalignment may contribute to degeneration or a breakdown. If things are not aligned adequately, the body starts pumping out bone (arthritis) to stabilize an area.
Having the right alignment also helps the discs to stay in place and be more stable as well. That's doesn't mean you can't have a major injury that herniates a disc. However, the chances are less and th healing is greater when the alignment is normal. The most common disc protrusion or bulge is postero-lateral; right where the neural foramen is. A disc that travels straight back may actuall impinge on the central neural canal. This is where the spinal cord is. When you hear the word "stenosis" - this would be central stenosis versus closure of the neural foramen or neural foraminal stenosis.
Now degeneration can mean the bones start to have jagged edges or spurring. The things can directly shrink the foramen. We may also get disc material that's flattened and/or bulged. Lastly we may get more instability or misalignment.
As you can guess, inflammation may increase also. We are talking about internal inflammation here. This inflammation contributes to the closing of the nerve holes.
Back to the traction:
Tractioning the spine helps to get the inflammation out, possibly takes a bone or bone pressure of a nerve, helps the disk to retract back into place as well as helps the spine to fall back into place if misaligned.
Now, the question is: what's the difference between plain ole traction and 'true neck traction'. The later simply is tractioning where the neck curve is given to the neck. Something like the 'posture pump' traction or the 'posture right' traction would be examples.
Manual traction (where someone pulls you by the head), or over-the-door type traction would be examples of regular traction. Is this good? Sure; but the ultimate goal is to restore that neck curve because it will help in many ways.
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