Popping noises coming from your back can be simply annoying or can be a sign of a underlying problem. The reasons joints make noise in your back include gas pressures, tendon and ligament tensions, and bony arthritis and misalignment. Investigating which one you are experiencing may help you decide whether you need to have it evaluated by your doctor.
Joint Fluid Gas
Around most joints in your back, a ligamentous structure like a sock stretches from one side of the joint to the other and contains fluid that lubricates joint movement. In that fluid, microscopic bubbles of gas are present. When you move the joint, pressure in the fluid and on those bubbles increases and when the pressure is too great, the gases are pushed through the sock, causing a popping sound. This is the phenomenon you get when you pop your knuckle. It takes time for the gases to get re-established and explains why you have to wait a while to pop your knuckle again.
Ligaments and Tendons
Stretching across the joints are ligaments holding the joint together and tendons attaching the muscles to the bones. When you move that joint, those structures slide across bony prominences. If the ligament or tendon is too tight, due to inflammation or muscle inflexibility, it can act like a guitar string that is plucked by the bony prominence, causing a consistent snapping or popping.
Arthritic or Misaligned Joints
Your back has many joints. Each bone in your spine has at least five joints. There are two points of joint contact above a bone and two below, and the intervertebral disk makes up the fifth. In addition, where ribs connect to the sides of the vertebrae, you have two more joints. Within this mechanism, there can be arthritis that roughens the joint surface, and there can be subtle misalignments from poor posture and old injuries. Those abnormalities can create popping when your movement increases pressure on the joint.
When to Seek Help
Popping sounds in your back are not normal. They are a sign something is not as it should be. Sometimes a stretching program will limber you up and the noise will go away, but if it persists, get an evaluation by a chiropractor or physical therapist to check your muscle tension, posture and joint alignment.
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