Can Popping Your Neck Cause A Stroke?

Can Popping Your Neck Cause A Stroke?
PandG/Shutterstock

The Washington Post recently reported the story of Josh Hader, a 28-year-old who stretched and popped his neck, tore an artery and nearly lost his life from a major stroke. And earlier this year, the Daily Mail reported the story of Natalie Kunicki, a 23-year-old paramedic who stretched her neck and suffered a similar fate.

These cases are by no means isolated and there are many reports of them in the medical literature too. So let’s look at what happens when you pop your neck.

Neck “popping” or “cracking” is a common phenomenon that occurs naturally with neck movements. I’m sure you’ve heard your neck make these noises at some point in your life. But people can also deliberately pop their neck. While the term might suggest a violent movement, the sound is not caused by bones or ligaments cracking, but by a minor stretch leading to a temporary separation of the joint surfaces and the development of a gas bubble. Habitual neck poppers induce such cracking to relieve tension or to improve neck pain.

Popping your neck can cause a small tear (dissection) in the inner lining of an artery, which leads to blood clots forming. These often dissolve without causing any symptoms but they can fly off and lead to a blockage in an artery downstream, causing an ischaemic stroke – a condition where blood supply to part of the brain is cut off.


 Get The Latest By Email

Weekly Magazine Daily Inspiration

The two vertebral arteries (major arteries of the neck) join up to form the basilar artery that supplies the back of the brain with blood. They are vulnerable to injury by rotation and bending of the neck, as they pass through bony canals in the side arms of the vertebrae and are stretched when the neck is turned.

Can Popping Your Neck Cause A Stroke?
Basilar artery. ellepigrafica/Shutterstock

Habitual neck popping can weaken the ligaments that hold together the joints between the vertebrae, allowing for more extensive neck movement and so leaving the arteries more vulnerable to injury.

Hader told the Washington Post that he had had neck pain for a couple of weeks, stretched his neck lightly to provide relief using his hand to apply a bit more pressure and suddenly heard a pop. His left hand went numb almost immediately, he became unsteady and lost the ability to walk.

At Mercy Hospital in Oklahoma City where he was treated, Hader was diagnosed as having a stroke due to a vertebral artery tear.

The cause-and-effect relationship of Hader’s story seems convincing. But it is unlikely that the pop he described caused the tear in his artery that led to the stroke, as it would take more than a few minutes after the injury for the blood clot to form and fly off. It is more likely that the tear in the artery and the clot were already present when he popped his neck, but was dislodged by the movement.

The neck pain Hader experienced in the weeks leading up to his stroke may have been the first symptom of this tear.

Neck cracking in films. You know something bad is about to happen.

Habitual neck poppers

“Neck cracking” is an integral part of spinal manipulation performed by chiropractors and physiotherapists to alleviate neck pain. The sounds are commonly believed to indicate a successful procedure. Strokes are a well-recognised, if rare, complication of this procedure. Estimates for the incidence of arterial tear after this procedure range from 1 in 20,000 to 1 in 250,000 treatments.

This could be an underestimate, as stroke symptoms may only develop weeks after the injury, with the practitioner being unaware of the problem. Only a few cases linking self-induced neck popping and stroke are published. The number of people who crack their necks is unknown, but is probably large, suggesting a low risk.

Neck popping can cause strokes, especially when it is done regularly. But by current knowledge, the risk of a stroke is tiny. While cracking sounds in the neck during normal physical activity is nothing to worry about, it is best to avoid habitual neck cracking.The Conversation

About The Author

Christine Roffe, Professor of Stroke Medicine, Keele University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

books_fitness

AVAILABLE LANGUAGES

English Afrikaans Arabic Chinese (Simplified) Chinese (Traditional) Danish Dutch Filipino Finnish French German Greek Hebrew Hindi Hungarian Indonesian Italian Japanese Korean Malay Norwegian Persian Polish Portuguese Romanian Russian Spanish Swahili Swedish Thai Turkish Ukrainian Urdu Vietnamese

follow InnerSelf on

facebook icontwitter iconyoutube iconinstagram iconpintrest iconrss icon

 Get The Latest By Email

Weekly Magazine Daily Inspiration

Wednesday, 26 July 2023 12:55

With the rising cost of living, gyms memberships and fitness classes are becoming increasingly unaffordable. But the good news is you can make just as much progress at home.

Saturday, 08 May 2021 08:43

Humanity has always had a rocky relationship with wasps. They are one of those insects that we love to hate. We value bees (which also sting) because they pollinate our crops and make honey

Friday, 21 May 2021 10:09

The humble potato has been given a bad rap. What was once a cheap staple of many countries’ diets has instead been branded in recent years an “unhealthy” food best avoided.

Sunday, 23 May 2021 08:15

We sometimes need to use antibiotics to treat sick animals, but taking advantage of opportunities to reduce antibiotics use could benefit everyone

Wednesday, 21 April 2021 07:23

Whether it’s your arthritic relative who knows rain is on the way when their knees ache or your lifelong pal who gets a headache when a storm is approaching, we all know somebody who claims they...

Thursday, 20 May 2021 08:31

It’s recommended we do at least 30 minutes of exercise a day – or 150 minutes a week – to stay healthy. But 30 minutes accounts for just 2% of the day. And many of us spend most of the rest of the...

New Attitudes - New Possibilities

InnerSelf.comClimateImpactNews.com | InnerPower.net
MightyNatural.com | WholisticPolitics.com | InnerSelf Market
Copyright ©1985 - 2021 InnerSelf Publications. All Rights Reserved.