Neck-Cracker Neuropathy

To the Editor: Voluntary and habitual “cracking” of the cervical spine can be annoying to those within hearing distance. The motivation for this activity is unclear, but participants relate a vague sense of discomfort in the neck that is relieved by forceful lateral flexion. Neck cracking may be related to the more common knuckle cracking. We recently evaluated a patient whose case illustrates that such neck cracking may be injurious. A 20-year-old college student recalled making an unusually vigorous cracking maneuver of forcing his neck to the left. He immediately experienced right-neck pain, which subsided over a week. A month.