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The answer is yes. This is not to say that injury always happens, but continual/repeating "cracking" of the spine can lead to serious problems.

When one pops his own joints, the sound is only nitrogen gas released due to the negative pressure within the joint capsule. The problem can arise from chronic overstress of the supporting ligaments.

When a person feels the need to "pop" his neck, for example, he generally does so out of a need to release a certain amount of tension or discomfort that has built up in the joint structures. This is due to misalignments of the vertebral structures, or a fixation of the spinal joint(s).

As the person pops his neck, he most often only pops the structures of least resistance and not the structure of greatest fixation. (This is why there always seems to be a continual desire to pop the joint again, just shortly after already being popped.) Because the fixation remains, there is an incredible motivation to repeat the "self-correction."

This supposedly harmless pop sound is only gas released from the tissues, but this only happens as a result of a person putting a great deal of stress into the joint. This stress stretches the ligaments of the surrounding joint, leaving them more and more unstable with every pop.

Perpetual instability also occurs, because the original fixation is not corrected. The spine is designed to move as a unit. If a motor unit is not moving correctly, the joints above, below, or both will compensate by moving more than they should. This gives the body the same amount of movement, but with a side-effect of hypermobility.

Again, self adjusting only adds to greater hypermobility and greater instability. When the structure of the spine reaches a certain level of instability, the body fixes it by creating a brace. In other words the joint grows a bone bridge between the two vertebrae, permanently stabalizing the joint by a process called osteophytosis. This is also is known as osteoarthritis of the spine, or degenerative joint disease. This is permanent/irreversable, not to mention serious.

This creates a great deal of problems for the nervous system and the musculoskeletal system. So why does the body do this? It's just not willing to risk the danger that spinal instability poses to the body. The risks with instability include paralysis or death. The body is doing what it believes to be in its best interest, even if you're not pleased by its performance (it definitely hasn't been pleased with yours).

A chiropractor is trained to eliminate the fixation of the problematic joints of the spine. The motion is done with much greater speed and precision than any person can do to themselves. By using greater acceleration in the adjustment, they eliminate more torque and damage into the joint. (Think of pulling a table cloth off of a set table with the greatest amount of speed posible, compared to a much slower pulling of the table cloth. The faster the pull, the cleaner the outcome.)

Plus, chiropractors are moving the joint in a specific vector of correction, not just popping it any which way for releif. Their technique allows the correction of spinal distortion with minimal negative effects on the body.

This game of self correction is more than popping knuckles. It effects spinal integrity, and therefor the central nervous system.

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9y ago
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