Is cracking your fingers is bad. Info or intox ?

University of Alberta

Published the 22.10.2017 at 08: 00

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Keywords :

Arthroseostéopathie

Cracking his fingers is not dangerous, but in fact, the proof is quite recent.

YLD : Yes, it is quite a funny story. We are in 20 years : an all-American boy, Donald Unger, had the dirty habit of cracking his knuckles. And his mother kept repeating : stop Donald, you’re going to have arthritis ! Become a doctor, he wanted to verify the words of his mother, he conducted a scientific study. He did not crack the knuckles of his left hand but not his right hand, and this, for 60 years !!! To be precise, the joints of his left hand were cracked at least 36 500 times, while those to the right have cracked rarely and spontaneously. And the result : not the beginning of the beginning of arthritis. The two hands were identical.

That said, a study with a single patient, it is a little light as proof…

YLD : Indeed, but since then, other work has been done on the subject, and, overall, there is no more osteoarthritis in crackers than in the other ; however, we still noted a handful of hands less firm. Which is frankly not dramatic.
 

What is it that causes the crackling ?

YLD : The noise produced would be the result of several mechanisms. First of all, it stops on the functioning of our joints. To facilitate the movement between the bones, their contact is supported by a thin layer of a liquid called synovial.
If one forces the joint to loosen by pulling on the bones, the pressure will drop significantly in this liquid, there occurs cavitation, that is to say, the appearance of gas bubbles. It is the rapid expansion of these bubbles is responsible for the noise. We also think it is the rapid stretching of ligaments or broken of memberships of intra-articular that could be the source of the crackling sound.

But there are not that crackers of your fingers. Some are also crack their neck, for example ?

YLD : It seems that there are even crackers to toe. But, for the neck, this is most annoying because it’s basically always the same floor, the femur which is being sought. Gradually, the ligaments will relax and the floor in question becomes unstable. To control this instability, what are the muscles that constrict and in the long run, it can be painful !

And then, there are joints that creak without that one wants to do it. This is particularly the case for the hip. There, we know that these are the tendons that slamming.
 

It is also the same noise when going to an osteopath ?

YLD : Yes. But this is not essential for the session to be successful.

But then again, no medical consequences ?

YLD : Yes, you can say, in conclusion, that whole generations of parents have lied to their offspring, by threatening to oa, simply because it annoyed him…