Since a few weeks I (athletic man, 76 years) have problems with my neck with certain movements. Bending forwards and backwards goes well, but with a number of sideways movements I feel and hear a snap. Is that dangerous?
Joris Bartstra, journalist with a medical degree.
There are roughly three causes of snapping and cracking in your neck: all relatively harmless. The kind of snapping that some people do with their fingers is caused by air bubbles that form in the synovial fluid when your joint capsule is first under underpressure and then overpressure, causing the bubble to ‘pop’. Such a snap happens once with a movement, you cannot repeat it immediately. The second kind is when a muscle or ligament (band) is pulled over a protrusion of a bone. As you get older, your muscles become less elastic and the edges of bones become more pronounced. You can repeat this snap endlessly, but I wouldn’t do that too often, because it irritates the ‘soft tissues’ and then you can get pain complaints. The least pleasant cause is osteoarthritis of the facet joints between the neck vertebrae: the cartilage is then worn out and the somewhat rough bone parts rub against each other: this gives more of a somewhat grinding, abrasive feeling. That is not catastrophic, but in the long run it causes pain and there is not much that can be done about it. With you I stick to the second cause.
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