Cracking Joints Can Cause An Injury?

Hello Steemians! In this short article I will talk about joint noises when we perform certain movements, whether intentional or not.

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What are these sounds and why do they occur?

To begin with, I want to say that this joint noise means nothing, neither for good nor for bad. But we must clarify that if it is accompanied by pain or inflammation it could be a pathology that should be treated in depth.

To continue, we have to imagine that an articulation, such as the articulation of our fingers, contains synovial fluid and this, in its composition, has gaseous elements. Then, when we make the stretching gesture of the joint capsule, there is a sudden reduction in pressure, causing these gas molecules to come together suddenly forming a small bubble, which will implode and produce that sound or crunch. For this reason, even if we try to perform this action twice in a row, we will never achieve it, because until the pressure doesn't equalize again we will not be able to generate that crunch again.

Does it cause joint wear?

Many people believe that performing these types of movements will generate a long-term arthritis process. There is a very interesting and proven case of a person who during 60 years manipulated only the left hand doing this type of movements, while in the right hand he did not do it. The results were that he had the same wear on both hands, meaning that doing those movements had no negative influence.

There are also many other cases and studies that give us to understand that it is a false belief and that this does not produce any degenerative effect on the joints of the fingers.

And what happens when it occurs in the column?

If we do these manipulations in the joints of the spine, whether it is done by a physiotherapist or a professional of this type, the mechanism is a bit different. In the vertebrae we have joint veneers through which fibers pass to the posterior horn of our marrow. These fibers are divided into two types:

• The thick type, which gives us information about our movement and our position.
• The fine type, which give us information about pain.

Then, when a specialist performs this type of movement, a very powerful effect is produced, especially in thick fibers, which causes small fibers to be inhibited, so that pain is eliminated and mobility is gained.

It is worth mentioning that these manipulations are not the only technique or alternative to achieve these physiological effects.

References

1. Unger, D. L. (1998). Does knuckle cracking lead to arthritis of the fingers?. Arthritis & Rheumatology,41(5), 949-950.
2. Watson P, Kernohan WG, Mollan RA. A study of the cracking sounds from the metacarpophalangeal joint. Proc Inst Mech Eng H. 1989;203: 109–18.
3. Deweber K, Olszewski M, Ortolano R. Knuckle cracking and hand osteoarthritis. J Am Board Fam Med. 2011;24: 169–74.
4. Ricard, F. (2003). Tratamiento osteopático de las lumbalgias y lumbociáticas por hernias discales. Ed. Médica Panamericana.

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