Among many viral sensations, neck cracking has left TikTok users in stitches, helping the app rack up over 1.9 billion views in total.
Chiropractors have made their mark on the platform, all while many will spend their evenings scrolling through their ‘satisfying’ videos, an expert has claimed it could be more dangerous than you think.
Ever Arias, MD, known online for debunking medical myths and providing health advice, told his followers never to crack their necks.
The doctor responded to a viral TikTok of a young girl breaking her neck, she captioned the video: ‘I’m going to crack my neck, everything will be fine!!!
A TikTok doctor warned his followers never to crack their necks, telling a horrifying story of a patient with hypermobility who ended up
Although many chiropractors disagree, Ever Arias MD has said that a whole host of problems can potentially occur with neck cracking.
She shows herself wearing a neck brace and adds: ‘Breaks neck with my own hands and spends the first two weeks of college in a neck brace.’
The doctor then starts a ‘story’ in which he tells his 136,200 followers why they should ‘never’ crack your neck.
He explained that a 20-year-old patient had visited the hospital after breaking her neck twice, hearing a snap and being in ‘a lot of pain’.
He said: “She walked into the emergency room after being seen and scanned. We discovered she had a cervical compression fracture.”
The doctor explained: ‘Basically she was diagnosed with hypermobility syndrome and therefore she was very mobile.
“What happened is she ended up bending her neck a little too much and got a compression fracture.”
According to According to the American Academy of Orthopedic Surgeons, a minor compression fracture can be treated with a cervical brace worn for 6 to 8 weeks, while a more complex fracture may require surgery and/or months in a stiff cast.
The doctor added that several problems can occur when cracking the neck.
He said, “It’s important to understand that if you break your neck going to the chiropractor, there are a number of situations you could find yourself in.”
He claimed: “Sometimes people come in with a stroke and they have a chiropractor manipulate their neck and they end up having a vertebral artery dissection that causes them to have a stroke.
“You could also cause your own vertebral artery dissection or other injuries to blood vessels in the structure of the neck.”
MailOnline has previously reported cases of life-threatening neck tears. In 2019, a father of two suffered a stroke after breaking his neck while stretching.
After hearing a bang, Josh Hader, from Oklahoma, felt numb and could not walk straight and was rushed to the hospital.
Hader told DailyMail.com that doctors told him that while he was cracking his neck, he had twisted it so quickly that he had accidentally ruptured a blood vessel leading from his neck to his brain, causing the stroke.
A study at the University of California, San Francisco also found that having a broken neck could increase the risk of stroke, the DailyMail reported.
Dr. Wade Smith, associate professor of neurology, said: ‘We’re not talking about large numbers of victims – but rare cases do occur, and doctors and patients need to be aware of spinal manipulation therapy as a rare but potentially causative factor in stroke. .’
Dr. Smith said chiropractors should warn patients about the risk, while some should be pre-screened for symptoms of pre-existing conditions.
However, Professor Alan Breen, from the Anglo-European College of Chiropractic, previously told the DailyMail that solid research showed that neck manipulation had no more impact on the vertebral arteries than normal neck movements.
He added: ‘It is simply not possible to ‘rupture’ a carotid artery in the manner suggested by the US researchers. It is extraordinary that anyone, let alone an experienced medical professional, has raised such a possibility.”
The popular video of Dr. Arias has been viewed almost 40,000 times, and despite warnings, hundreds of people responded, claiming they would continue to crack their necks.
‘I’ve been cracking it every day for more than 15 years. If I don’t, I can’t get through the day,” one user commented.
Another user who admitted to cracking his neck every day said: ‘If I don’t do it, it feels weird.’
One hypermobile user said: ‘My neck cracks when I take a deep breath!’
Meanwhile, a user asked: ‘What should we do when we feel like we need to crack our neck. If I don’t, I’ll get inconvenienced.’
To which the doctor replied: ‘Just don’t do it often.’ Try massaging it first.’