Do you or someone you know self-manipulate (crack, pop, click, “adjust”) your/their own neck? If so, this is very valuable information. Please pass it on to someone you care about that self-manipulates. There have been people who have even torn the vertebral artery in their neck by doing this. That will quickly lead to a stroke. Professionally performed adjustments do not carry this danger.
A Doctor of Chiropractic is very well-trained in manipulation/ adjusting of joints. Besides a background in basic sciences of anatomy, physiology, neurology, the muscular and skeletal systems, biochemistry, histology, and pathology, a chiropractic student spends many hours in the clinical sciences of physical diagnosis, neuordiagnosis, gerontology, pediatrics, and so on. Along with these courses, the student has many courses in biomechanics and adjusting techniques.
One of the first rules or axioms learned in chiropractic college is, “It is just as important to know when NOT to adjust as when to adjust!”
A lay person can not know all these things and is very likely to apply non-specific forces rather than specific forces to the joint. There is also a real possibility of too much force and at an angle which is destructive rather than therapeutic.
The top picture also illustrates that self-manipulation will often affect the “wrong” joint (the already overly mobile joint) which destabilizes it all the more. Meanwhile, the under-mobile, or stuck joint, remains stuck and contributes to more destabilization because it does not contribute to the overall interdependent joint movements of nearby joints. These nearby joints have to compensate for the stuck neighboring joint by over-reaching their normal movement, putting stress on the ligaments and other associated joint tissues. The stuck joint continues to irritate the area and to experience cartilage degradation due to the death of its cartilage cells in the absence of motion which bathes the cells in regenerative nutrients.
No, it is NOT OK to “crack” your own joints. Get a professional. See a doctor of chiropractic.
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