I have osteoarthritis. What non-invasive options are available to me before considering surgery?

Cracking your neck involves sudden and forceful twisting or bending of the cervical spine. Most of the time, its harmless. It helps provide some relief to stiff and uncomfortable neck by stretching out the muscles, especially the shorter paravertebral muscles. The sound comes from stretching the facet joint capsules (facet joints are small joints along the side of the spine, there are two facets at each spinal level), similar to cracking your knuckles.

It is unusual to have shingles without having chickenpox before. Shingles, also known as herpes zoster, is caused by the same virus that causes chickenpox, which is the varicella-zoster virus. If you had chickenpox before, the virus that caused it may live on in the nerves linked to the spinal cord, in an inactive state. The virus becomes active again when there is a temporary decrease in the body’s immunity. It will then multiply and move along the nerve fibres to the skin supplied by them. Shingles then appears in the skin as a painful blistering rash.