How Injuries Change the Ligaments
Did you know that if we have an injury to the spine—or to any joint in the body, for that matter—the body lays down scar tissue, and the ligaments will actually change shape and become asymmetrical based upon the injury? But let’s talk specifically about the spine.
Now, how does the body do that? Let’s say we take this pattern: Somebody had a trauma like this, and their head shifted out of position like this. After the trauma, this was their posture. This is how it ended up.
The ligaments on one side had been stretched, and the ligaments on the other side had gotten shortened. This is their new pattern of misalignment. Because the ligaments have changed shape, this is now how the patient is stuck.
By finding out exactly what the pattern of misalignment is, we can come up with different strategies to help free them up and get them back to the middle.
The Role of Specific Adjustments
Fantastic. So, what are those strategies?
One of them is a specific adjustment that will help stretch the scar tissue, but it doesn’t, by itself, actually change the shape. We need the adjustment to free it, but to actually—what we call—remodel the ligaments, we’re going to have to stretch them over a period of time.
The research tells us that to get a ligament to change shape, we have to hold it in a stretched position for a minimum of 10 minutes. By the way, a disc is a type of ligament.
Why Therapeutic Exercises Are Not Enough by Themselves
We’ve talked before about how important therapeutic exercises are. If somebody is shifted like this, we know that we’re going to have to do exactly the opposite of that to reeducate the brain.
But in and of themselves, therapeutic exercises are not going to move the body over. We know that we have to create an adjustment to free it up, but in and of itself, the adjustment is not going to be enough to move the body over.
Using Traction to Remodel the Ligaments
What we do is specific timed stretching. We call that traction. We bring the body into a corrected position and hold it for a minimum of 10 minutes. That’s what allows the ligaments to stretch and remodel.
If you look behind me, you’ll see these traction units. What we do with every patient is figure out their specific pattern and their specific direction of misalignment.
If the trauma was like this and their head shifted like this, we’d create a stretch on these instruments—on these traction units—where we’d stretch the head in the opposite direction. We would hold it there for at least 10 minutes, or better yet, 15 minutes.
Little by little, the ligaments stretch so that the patient ends up in the middle again. They’re nice and symmetrical, and their body can heal.
How Traction Is Similar to Orthodontics
It’s actually how oral orthodontics or Invisalign work: They hold the body in a corrected position. With Invisalign, they’re doing it for 22 hours a day. With full, old-school braces, they’re doing it 24 hours a day. It stretches the ligaments of the teeth back toward the center.
With chiropractic techniques, we do intense stretching for shorter periods of time, repetitively, to stretch, stretch, stretch, stretch, stretch—overstretch it, hold it this way for 10 minutes, and the patient ends up in the middle.
In-Office and At-Home Traction
A patient can’t hold a therapeutic exercise for 10 minutes on their own, but we can use certain in-office and home traction units to put them in a corrected position.
It’s stretching, and they’ll definitely feel it. It’s not painful, but we challenge the tissue. Little by little, the tissue stretches, and the body starts to rebuild and heal the connective tissue—specifically the ligaments.
Over time, we shift them and get them back to the center. It takes the stress off the nervous system, and the body heals.
Exercise, Adjust, and Traction
Our formula for spinal postural correction is exercise, adjust, and traction. But that traction piece must have time linked to it. We typically do 15 minutes in the office and 20 minutes at home.
These traction units give us the time for the tissue to gently and effectively stretch so the body can come back into normal alignment, take stress off the nervous system, and heal.
That’s how we fix these problems.
