Why does knuckle cracking feel good

These are signs that something is wrong, and you should be evaluated by your doctor. Injuring your finger by pulling very forcefully or moving it in the wrong direction is usually very painful. Your finger may look crooked or start to swell. If this happens, you should see your doctor right away. Breaking a habit like cracking your knuckles can be hard, but it can be done. Do you know the signs of a dislocated finger? We explain the symptoms and how this injury is treated. Follow this guide to safely pop your knee to relieve gas buildup and tension.

Find out what causes the sensation to need to pop your knee from time to…. A recessed maxilla can cause cosmetic issues like flat cheekbones and a prominent jaw, and lead to dental problems, speech issues, and obstructed…. If you do tear a meniscus, you might be tempted to "walk it off. There is actually no evidence that cracking your fingers is harmful or can cause damage.

On the contrary, some researchers have discovered a lower incidence of arthritis in people who do crack their fingers. This continues to be studied to determine whether this is a coincidence, or whether cracking your fingers actually helps prevent arthritis from developing. Cracking your fingers may bring relief, but if you are suffering from chronic pain in your fingers, wrists, elbow, or shoulder, you should consider seeing a specialist.

A hand surgeon is the best person to see when it comes to diagnosing and treating conditions affecting those areas. Our board-certified hand surgeons at Greater Chesapeake Hand to Shoulder have locations across Maryland, we are ready to help you.

Call our main office number today at to schedule a consultation with our physicians, or request an appointment online at one of our convenient locations. We look forward to serving you and helping you live well.

However, in the absence of pain, swelling, or other joint symptoms, these sounds are probably nothing to be concerned about, and there is no reliable way to silence them. As a service to our readers, Harvard Health Publishing provides access to our library of archived content.

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There are several publications in pub Med that point to this. I can only imagine that the strength reduction is modest at best. Arthritis causes knuckle cracking, not the other way around. There is no medical evidence that knuckle cracking causes arthritis; not one study. If a young person had mild discomfort or stiffness in his hands, would he crack his knuckles to make them feel better?

Yes, he would; and he does. In my chiropractic practice, I find that young people who crack their knuckles, have early, mild arthritis. These same young people also usually have signs, obvious to a trained physician, of arthritis in their necks and other parts of their spines.

There is nothing inherently wrong with knuckle cracking. It simply must be recognized as a probable early warning sign of arthritis, and we need to get our story straight! Will cracking knuckles for a long period of time increase the size of the actual joint?

An older figure shared with me that since she had cracked the knuckles on her hands for her whole life, her hands had very large joints. Elementary school? I even force my boyfriend to crack my back for me sometimes—a textbook case of codependence. Actually, the process has to do with your joints. When you pull or bend your fingers the two most common cracking motions , you stretch that fluid-filled capsule.

This decreases pressure inside the gas-packed fluid, causing a small nitrogen bubble to form and then instantly pop. As you use your hands throughout the day and the muscles tighten up, the joints end up feeling tight as well. In other words, people crack their knuckles for the same reasons they might take a nice, big stretch in the middle of the day. So what separates the normal people from us knuckle-popping junkies?