It was sometime last week and I was in the car when I reached over to grab my phone on the front passenger seat. That’s when I heard three satisfyingly crunchy cracks from the right side of my neck, near the base of my skull.
My first thought was, “Ahh, that’s nice.” I can crack my neck on demand and it usually brings some relief. But then came a slow, creeping warmth of pain from the exact spot. “Okay,” I thought, “that’s new.”
It wasn’t until I got home later that evening that I realised something was off. I had twisted my neck. My skull was now attached to a neck that absolutely refused to turn left– like it had suddenly joined a right-wing political party. Naturally, my family found this hilarious. I ended up moving like Robocop, having to pivot my whole body just to face them when talking.
Still, I thought, maybe a good night’s sleep would heal all wounds.
It didn’t.
The next morning, I frantically texted my chiropractor and booked the soonest appointment.
Growing up in Malaysia, when you sprained something, dislocated a joint, or had any muscular or skeletal issue (as long as nothing was actually broken), you’d be whisked off to the local tit-tar—a traditional Chinese bone-setter typically found in every town’s Chinese medicine shop. These sifus often looked like they had just stepped off the set of a low-budget Hong Kong kung-fu movie—pagoda singlet, king-fu sandals and all.
I remember once spraining my left pinkie. Naturally, my parents carted me off to a tit-tar in Jinjang to get it “fixed.” I’m pretty sure some of these sifus enjoy their work a little too much– especially the pain part. Mine kneaded my poor finger with the enthusiasm of someone making sourdough bread. “If there’s no pain, there’s no gain,” he chanted as I squirmed and screamed in the chair. The next day, my pinkie had swelled up to the size of a kuih cekodok.
Thankfully, times have changed. These days, we’ve moved upmarket. Chiropractors have cornered the sprains-and-strains market, and I, for one, am grateful. Now, instead of being tortured by a kung-fu extra, I get treated in a softly lit, air-conditioned room with soothing new-age music playing in the background.
When I arrived at my chiropractor’s clinic, I explained the pain and how I think I injured myself. She looked at me suspiciously and asked, “Did you crack your neck?”
I insisted I didn’t– technically true, since it cracked on its own when I was driving.
She then gently felt around my neck and gave her diagnosis: I had inadvertently twisted it in such a way that the other side of my neck and trapezius muscles were overcompensating, leading to the pain, tightness and soreness.
She suggested dry needling as a solution. At the mention of needles, my survival instincts kicked in. “What if you puncture something important?” I asked, to which she replied that the odds were lower than winning the Sports Toto lottery. Still, I declined, choosing instead to brave the more manual approach.
Big mistake.
I cried when she pressed. I cried when she twisted. I protested every time she told me to relax. It was a symphony of pain.
By the end of the session, after an epic combination of prodding, stretching, dropping, twisting and pressing, I was dazed and slightly cross-eyed. The pain in my neck had eased somewhat, but I’m pretty sure my chiropractor now thinks I’m the real pain in the neck.