13/10/2025
Simple spinal traction can be an incredibly valuable addition to your chiropractic care.
Evidence is growing that great attention should be directed towards supporting the normal curvatures of the human spine.
A normal spine has curves in the neck, mid- and lower-back that should fit within certain margins when measured.
When the curves are outside those normal values - aka: a person isn’t aligned properly - this can contribute to a number of common spinal complaints:
💥Neck pain (Anwar, Moustafa et al. 2025).
🩻 Lower back pain (Chun, Lim et al. 2017, Aljallad, Moustafa et al. 2024).
🩼 Disc bulges (Gao, Zhang et al. 2019).
🧠 Headaches (Moustafa, Shousha et al. 2021).
And that is just to name a few!
🔪There’s also a growing awareness of pre-operative spinal curves as a factor for post-operative outcomes in spinal surgery (Celestre, Dimar et al. 2018, Cao, Xu et al. 2022).
We’ve been discussing the effect that chiropractic care can have on the way our brain processes information from the spine and what this means for people with spinal complaints.
We’re also seeing the negative changes in brain processing associated with poor spinal alignment (Moustafa, Youssef et al. 2021) and this appears to be a factor in more than just pain (Moustafa, Kim et al. 2022).
Put simply - your brain is likely worse at processing information from the spine when your spinal alignment is poor (Abu-Ghosh, Moustafa et al. 2024).
This means that for a lot of people we need to look deeper than a physical exam. There are certain conditions where traction is not appropriate and these devices should be used under the care of someone qualified in their use.
Spinal x-rays are very useful for (among other things) identifying patients where traction is not the right course of action.
We’re always looking at the root cause of an issue and utilising the best protocols available to address it.
That way we’re avoiding playing “healthcare whack-a-mole” with your spine.
References in the comments ⬇️
