How does a cervical traction pillow work?
The traction pillow will mold your spine into the supporting curve shape, reducing stretch and tension on your spinal cord.
You’ll want to lie with the traction pillow under your neck and wedged tightly against your shoulders (flat side next to your shoulders). Allow your head to hang completely over the back of the pillow while relaxing.
How do you use lumbar traction?
When setting up your lumbar traction pillow, you will want to make sure you are setting it up correctly and paying attention to how and where you are placing the lumbar traction pillow. One of the first things to note is that you will always want to use your cervical traction pillow along with your lumbar traction pillow. You should never use just the lumbar traction pillow by itself.
After your cervical traction pillow is positioned correctly, you will place the lumbar traction. To do so, you will raise your hips up and slide the pillow underneath. Feel to make sure that the top of the pillow is right at the bottom of your ribs and that the bottom of the pillow is not pushing your pelvis forward. The wide part of the pillow goes up towards the ribs and the skinny part points down toward your hips.
To watch the full video, click here.
How often should you do traction?
You will want to do your traction for a full 15 minutes every single day. In the beginning, you might need to work up to that.
If your recommendation is cervical and lumbar traction, and cervical traction feels fine and you can do a full 15 minutes with it but the lumbar traction starts to ache maybe at minute five, you can take out the lumbar pillow and just do the cervical, but never the other way around. You do not want to do the lumbar traction without the cervical traction.
If you are starting at a lower time, then you want to work up to the full 15 minutes over the course of a week to a month depending on how slowly you need to move. The rule of thumb is that you want to give it a little bit of extra time each day but that can be just as little as 30 seconds if it’s really sore for you.
Can you do your traction in bed?
The answer is, yes!
You’ll notice when you use the traction pillow in bed, that the pressure will be a little bit less on your neck, but that’s totally fine. You’re still going to get the results that you want while being cozy and being able to actually create a habit that you can keep.
Tip: If you feel like the traction doesn’t feel right because your mattress has more cushion try this, scoot all the way to the end of the bed and let your head hang at the edge while doing your traction. This will give you a nice pull. (See image below)
To watch a demonstration click here.
It’s much more important that you have a habit that you can keep than just doing the traction pillow perfectly on the floor every once in a while. So yes, use your traction pillow in bed.
If you have any questions about this, please feel free to ask. The placement of the traction pillow/s is very important and one of the most critical parts of your home care.