Eric
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I've cracked for pleasure my whole life. I've been a little more obsessed than normal recently, because I broke my left wrist 3 weeks ago, and after surgery, the wrist and most of that hand have been off limits for cracking for a while.
Over the years I've collected 84 different cracks.
- All 28 knuckles of the hand
- Joint where each thumb joins the wrist (trapezium)
- Wrists, elbows, shoulders
- 14 knuckles of the feet
- Ankles, knees, hips
- 8 additional joints in the foot (metatarsals, cuneiformes, cuboids, naviculars)
- Sternum (in 2 locations)
- Jaw (both sides)
- Neck (at least 6 places)
- Thoracic spine (at least 3 places)
- Lower back (at least 7 places)
The sternum never used to crack until it became injured (two separate occasions).
Already this year, I have collected two new cracks in the foot (between 1st cuneiform and navicular, both sides). Not sure why these joints suddenly joined the list after 42 years of relative quiet
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eric, hi.
how did your neck start clicking?
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Click isn't the right word in my case. It is definitely a crack.
In third grade, I was punched in the neck, but that was well after my neck started cracking
I started cracking because my older sister used to pay me a quarter ($0.25 USD) to crack her toes.
If it's worth money, it must be a good thing…
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Hi Eric. I'm almost like you(joint cracking wise), but I'm 18. Do you have any arthritis or anything like that? cause I can't stop cracking and i love ittt. I like cracking my spine the most cause it makes thunder like noises and makes me feel so much better.
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Nothing yet.
Some of my knuckles may be oversized, not sure.
Occasionally I'll get too enthusiastic on a distal interphalangeal joint and it will be stiff and sore for a few days.
I don't believe that cracking itself is harmful, but exceeding a certain range of motion might damage ligaments. The articular surfaces are harder to injure, since they never come into contact with one another in a healthy joint, unless you do something truly extreme.
A side note, the surgeon for my wrist just informed me that I have an early stage of Dupuytren's Contracture, which tends to curl the fingers over a period of years or decades. Not caused by cracking, but it may limit what that finger can do in the future.
I am also a lifelong runner, and people are always telling me I'm a likely candidate for arthritis in the knee. From what I've read, though, there's absolutely no evidence that running increases incidence of arthritis of the knee. In fact, there's some evidence that it may be slightly protective.
What is harmful is trauma, the kind you might get in an impact sport. If I do develop arthritis, I figure it will probably be in the wrist that I just broke…
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Click isn't the right word in my case. It is definitely a crack.
In third grade, I was punched in the neck, but that was well after my neck started cracking
I started cracking because my older sister used to pay me a quarter ($0.25 USD) to crack her toes.
If it's worth money, it must be a good thing…
You SURE your neck cracked before you got punched? This is important…
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Absolutely certain.
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Can you help me to theorise why (these figures are my guess)
80% of people dont have severe neck cracking
and only about 20% do? -
No idea.
Though, if 20% of people have it, I wouldn't call it severe.
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No idea.
Though, if 20% of people have it, I wouldn't call it severe.
i would, im talking about the impact of the crack, not the quantity, read it back and think about it.