People are addicted to the "crack"

Patient preference seems to range from one extreme to another in regards to the “crack” they hear and feel during a Chiropractic adjustment. Some people absolutely cannot stand the noise and insist that an instrument be used on them as to avoid the sound. Other patients believe that if every single vertebral joint does not crack during their appointment, the performing Chiropractor must have no idea what he or she is doing, which is absolutely not the case. 

I have several patients in particular who have been to many different Chiropractors over the years and claim to “know their body exceedingly well” and get frustrated with me because I will simply not “crack” something that doesn’t need adjusted. Sure, we all love that feeling of endorphins flowing when an adjustment has been made, but take it from someone who has experience in ligament laxity. If your Chiropractor can’t find any subluxations, you simply don’t need adjusted, and forcing something to “crack” will only cause more harm than good. Furthermore, if your Chiropractor adjusts you the same way every single appointment without taking the time to check your spinal alignment each visit to check to make sure there are in fact subluxations in your spine, find a different Chiropractor.

Ligament laxity can occur from a number of things, but the kind I am referring to here in this post is caused by chronically sliding a joint in and out of place. This can happen not only by unnecessary, forced Chiropractic adjustments, but can also be self-caused, for example by cracking your own neck. This encourages hypermobility in your joints, which then naturally causes your neck muscles to become tighter to stabilize those joints. This then makes your neck feel strained, achy, and tight and so you then crack it to get some relief and then the vicious cycle continues on and on.

Now onto a little more of an in-depth explanation to understand the cavitation in a Chiropractic adjustment, versus the “crack” so many of us often self-inflict. There are four phases of motion in our vertebral range of motion, which include: active, passive, paraphysiologic, and sprain.

Active motion is the range in which a person can move a joint with your own free will. For example, wave your index finger up and down. That's the active range of your second metacarpophalangeal joint. Now use the fingers of your other hand to move the index finger up and down passively. This is the passive range of motion, which should be of greater range than the active range. 

Movement through the paraphysiologic range involves the "play" of the joint. In the paraphysiologic range, the surfaces of each bone, which don't actually quite touch in a normal joint, move apart slightly further. A sudden and quite temporary vacuum occurs, which is just as suddenly filled by gas, which has been, up until that moment, saturated in the joint fluid. A popping or cracking noise is produced. This exchange of gas and fluid is called cavitation. It is similar to popping your cheek with your finger; when you push your fingertip out of your mouth quickly, air rushes in to the space suddenly created and makes a pop.

If you are a chronic neck cracker, you are likely stretching out the supporting ligaments in your neck, which will soon lead to hypermobility. Skilled Chiropractors will be able to detect this and will treat this problem with strengthening exercises to prevent early degeneration, pain, and dysfunction. You will also more than likely receive a friendly lecture about not cracking your own neck. You may feel worse for several weeks, if ou go cold turkey, due to the fact that your now overly tight muscles become stiff from overcompensation of the lax ligaments, but this will improve over time and your future spinal health will thank you.