What's that sound?

Probably everyone has, at one time or another, heard some strange clicking, popping, clunking noises from movement in their joints. I hear about it pretty often and I have a few noises myself. What causes this? Is it a bad sign? What to do about it?

Jaw clicking: what causes this?

We tend to think it’s the bones of the joint making the sounds, but it probably isn’t.

Here are some examples: Jaw clicking - this is caused by the disc in the (temporomandibular joint) TMJ popping in and out of the joint. (Yes, we have a cushioning disc there to protect the joint.) When the muscle it’s attached to becomes too tight, it pulls the disc forward out of the joint and the ‘pop’ occurs as you open your mouth. The upper part of the jaw has to clunk over the disc.

Is it a bad sign? 

It’s not a good sign. The disc is there to protect the cartilage of the temporal bone. Without it in the right place, it’s possible but not inevitable, that the cartilage can wear away leaving the joint bone-on-bone, exposing nerves to wear and tear.

Shoulder grinding - Our shoulder joints are very mobile (thank you, primate ancestors!) thanks to our shoulder blades, which float on our backs over a bunch of ribs. The noise you hear might be coming from the shoulder blade bumping over some of these ribs if they are displaced toward the back, or from a muscle tendon or the edge of the trapezius muscle snapping over part of shoulder blade as it moves.

Is it a bad sign?

It might be uncomfortable and alarming, but there are unlikely to be bad consequences.

Knees or hips clicking

With age, we can get crepitation, a fancy way of saying ‘creakiness’ or joint sounds. If you were to open a knee or hip of an older person, you might see, instead of a smooth slick joint surface, some bumpy ‘crumbs’ or grit-like surface under the cartilage or around the joint. This is normal with aging. Our bodies get sloppier about where they lay down the calcium that is continually broken down and remade. These gritty places probably don’t make sounds, but they might be a cause of discomfort. It’s more likely that knee pain is coming from a misalignment elsewhere, in my experience.

Or, as in the shoulder and other joints, the sounds you hear could be some tendon snapping over a protruding part of a bone or another tendon.

Is it a bad sign?

Some of this is normal. Are those crumbs responsible for your pain? Maybe. It’s worth having some ML sessions first before you consider other more invasive options, like injections or surgery.

What to do about it?

The general rules of health apply here. The better your diet, the healthier your environment, and the better you handle stress,  the less work your body has to do to keep things going well. When we eat poorly, breathe bad air, or are constantly on high alert, our bodies have to spend more energy detoxifying excess sugars, proteins, neurotransmitters and chemicals. For diet, I like Dr. Greger’s plant-based recommendations in his book How Not to Age and his other books How Not to Die and How Not to Diet.

What else? I already eat well!

Mechanical Link restores or enhances the symmetry of movement in the body by balancing the tensions in the fascial net. The imbalances in the jaw, shoulders, hips, knees and everywhere else can be positively affected using Mechanical Link.