Is It Bad If Your Joints Crack and Crack When Moving?
Squeaky joints may sound like a sign that you are aging and your body is falling apart, but in most cases, your noisy knees have nothing to worry about. Let’s take a quick look at why joints are making noise and how to tell if there really is a problem.
Most clicking sounds are simply rearranging parts of your body.
If you hear a click or click every time you perform a certain movement, one of the common reasons is that muscles, tendons, or other parts of the body surrounding that joint are passing each other. This is especially common in the shoulders, says orthopedic surgeon Kim Stearns of the Cleveland Clinic , because there are so many moving parts in the shoulders.
If this happens during exercise, you can often help the situation by warming up a little and stretching before doing the movement that makes the noise. A relaxed muscle or tendon is less prone to noise.
Squeaking is common even in healthy joints.
A squeaking, crackling sound in knees or other joints is known as crepitus and is more common in older people than in younger people. People with osteoarthritis often have crepitus, which makes people with crepitus wonder if they develop arthritis or if their joints are damaged in any way when they move.
Fortunately, this is not the case. Crepitus is common in people with arthritis and in people without the condition. The cartilage in our knees gets rougher over time, and rough cartilage makes more noise when it moves than smooth cartilage, writes Michael Stewart, an orthopedic surgeon at the Mayo Clinic .
Ironically, people often think they should stop doing knee exercises if they make their knees crunch and squeak, but Stewart notes that your knees will be healthier in the long run if you have strong leg muscles, so exercise. using your knees will help rather than hurt. This is true even if you know you have osteoarthritis. The Arthritis Foundation points out on its website that “exercise is considered the most effective non-drug treatment for reducing pain and improving movement in patients with osteoarthritis.”
Is breaking joints and joints bad?
A single popping that you cannot repeat is usually due to a gas bubble inside the joint. The joints are surrounded by a layer of fibrous tissue called a capsule, and inside this capsule is a fluid called synovial fluid that acts as a lubricant as your bones slide against each other.
The leading theory for how you can break your joints is that bubbles can form in this fluid and that when a bubble appears, there is a characteristic joint clicking sound. The reason you can’t usually break with your knuckles twice in a row is because you’ve already burst a bubble and there isn’t another available to burst. But wait a bit, and another one may form.
But is it not healthy? There is no convincing evidence for this. Many experts have stated that there is nothing wrong with breaking finger joints, including one doctor who broke joints in only his left hand for 50 years while maintaining control of his right hand . He could not find any difference in the condition of the joints of the right and left arm.
When to Seek Medical Help for Squeaky Joints
If the noise in your joints is accompanied by pain or swelling, it’s time to see your doctor. However, pain or swelling in the joint is a sign of a problem, even if it is not due to squeaking noises, so the noises themselves are not a problem.
When you rupture certain ligaments or tendons, there may sometimes be a single “popping” sound that anyone who has torn the ACL in their knee can tell you. Again, the problem is not with the sound itself; after you hear this “pop”, you will notice pain, swelling, or sometimes instability in the joint. (After I tore the ACL, my knee began to wobble and wobble a little.) Seek help from your injury and be sure to mention the “popping” sound when you tell the story of what happened.