Rhiannon Ingle
A clip showing knuckles being cracked under fluoroscope is being dubbed 'hugely satisfying'.
In the video, a person can be seen bending and cracking each of their fingers one by one showing exactly what goes on when we partake in the age-old habit.
The TikTok caption reads: "Cracking knuckles under a fluoroscope - A fluoroscope is a medical imaging device that uses X-rays to create real-time moving images of the internal structures of a patient's body, commonly used for procedures and diagnostics."
The short clip has since been viewed over 567.7k times with hundreds of comments from people eager to weigh in on the phenomenon.
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One TikTok user penned: "I can tell that felt good."
"Watching while cracking my fingers," revealed another.
A third echoed: "I just cracked my knuckles for this."
"Pretty cool," wrote a fourth, while a fifth called the video 'quite satisfying'.
Others, however, were totally baffled by the person's cracking technique.
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"First of all, WHO THE HELL CRACKS THEIR KNUCKLES LIKE THAT?" hit out one TikTok user.
A second commented: "Wth is wrong with this dude?"
A third asked: "Who is cracking it sideways?"
"Now the real question is if cracking your knuckles is bad or not," wondered a final person.
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Well, one expert has explained how it actually works.
Speaking to Piedmont Healthcare, rheumatologist Mala Kaul M.D. said: "There’s a common misconception that if you crack your knuckles, you’re going to develop arthritis.
"But the truth is, you won’t."
But that begs the question, if it isn’t damaging you at all, what - excuse the completely intentional pun - is the craic with cracking knuckles?
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Dr Kaul continued: "When you crack your knuckles, you’re basically releasing air out of the joints."
Between your finger joints, there is a fluid that acts as a cushion called synovial fluid which effectively allows your fingers to move around in a number of ways without causing you any pain.
Air bubbles naturally form in that fluid, and the cracking of your knuckles is simply the release of those air bubbles.
While its pretty harmless, albeit slightly annoying for some, there are a few other things that could happen to you from cracking your knuckles.
According to Harvard Medical School, there have been occasional reports of people dislocating their fingers after cracking a bit too hard.
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Yikes.
What’s more, you could also do some damage to your ligaments, which are the bits of tissue that keep your bones together at the joint.
You’d have to be seriously cracking those knuckles to do any of this, but it still remains a possibility so it’s completely up to you whether you want to keep doing it.
So, there you have it.