A neurologist has issued a warning that a popular habit could be dangerous. According to the expert, cracking your neck could prove deadly.
For many people, cracking their neck is a source of relief, whether doing it themselves or asking a chiropractor to do it. Although this is typically harmless, it could be risky for certain people.
Addressing this issue, US-based neurologist Dr Baibing Chen, who is known online as Dr Bing, revealed why he would never crack his neck.
Speaking on TikTok, he explained: “One thing I don’t do as a neurologist is I don’t crack my own neck and I don’t let anyone else manipulate it either.
“A lot of people ask me this question from previous videos and different people have different risk tolerance. But for me personally I don’t find it appealing and the risk is not worth it for me.”
Dr Bing stated that cracking your neck could lead to something known as a vertebral artery dissection. And in severe cases this could cause a stroke.
“When you sharply twist or pop your neck you’re putting real stress on arteries that carry blood to your brain,” he said. “In rare but serious cases it can cause a vertebral artery dissection, which I have unfortunately seen.
“That’s basically a tear inside the artery wall and that can block blood flow or send clots the brain leading to a stroke.” However, he clarified that cracking your neck is not risky for every person.
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He continued: “Now not every neck manipulation is going to cause a stroke and if you have cracked your neck your whole life you probably have a lower risk to begin with.
“But if you have certain risk factors or develop certain risk factors later in life like high blood pressure, connective tissue diseases, like Ehlers-Danlos, if you’re a smoker or if you had recent neck trauma from a car accident, you’re at a much higher risk and the outcomes can be devastating.”
There isn’t just a stroke risk with cracking your neck, it can cause other issues too. He added: “A stroke in your posterior circulation can cause you to lose your balance, your ability to swallow, or even your voice and even worse, it could cause something called locked-in syndrome, where you are fully awake and aware, but completely paralysed, only able to move your eyes.
“So, no, I don’t think cracking your neck is universally dangerous for everybody. But if you ask me, it’s not a gamble I’m willing to take with my brain.”
His concerns were similar to those of Doctor Ever Arias, who shared a warning about cracking your neck last year. Speaking on TikTok, he said: “So there was a 20-something-year-old patient that walked into the emergency room after she said that she’s tried to crack her neck and after the second time that she cracked it she heard a snap and started having a lot of pain.
“She walked into the emergency room, after being seen and getting scanned we found that she had a cervical compression fracture.” A compression fracture is a break in a vertebra (a spine bone) and it then collapses.
He added that his colleagues have seen patients come in having had a stroke after “they had a chiropractor manipulate their neck”. “They ended up having a vertebral artery dissection that caused them to have a stroke,” he said.