Can you smash a cyst with a book

Ganglion cysts are lumps that, most commonly, develop on the back of the wrist. Underneath the skin is a fluid-filled sac. Although they're known medically as soft tissue tumors, ganglion GAN-glee-in cysts are not cancerous and are easily treated. Ganglion cysts are most common in people 15 to 40 years old, especially girls and women. But people of any age can have a ganglion cyst. Moving parts have lubrication fluid — in a car, for instance, the engine has motor oil.

In the body, joints and tendon sheathes space around tendons make synovial fluid a thick lubrication fluid. This fluid is supposed to stay in the joint or in the tendon sheathe. A ganglion cyst forms when the joint or tendon sheathe has a "leak. If you could look beneath the skin to see a ganglion cyst, it would resemble a water balloon the cyst attached to a faucet the joint or the tendon.

The distinctive lumps are the main sign of ganglion cysts. Most are round or oval. They might change size, growing larger or smaller as more fluid leaks in or gets absorbed.

Most ganglion cysts are not painful. It may be painful or restrict movement. A cyst is a sac-like pocket of tissue containing fluid or other substances. It can grow almost anywhere in the body or under skin.

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If you do tear a meniscus, you might be tempted to "walk it off. A lateral pelvic tilt is when one hip is higher than the other. Learn about five exercises that can help with this condition. Enthesopathy refers to pain and inflammation around your joints.

This includes your wrists, knees, and ankles. Here's how to recognize and treat it. It looks like your browser does not have JavaScript enabled. Please turn on JavaScript and try again. Important Phone Numbers. When should you call for help? Where can you learn more? Top of the page. Your Care Instructions A ganglion is a small sac, or cyst, filled with a clear fluid that is like jelly.

How can you care for yourself at home? Wear a wrist or finger splint as directed by your doctor. It will keep your wrist or hand from moving and help reduce the fluid in the cyst. This may be all you need for the ganglion to shrink and go away. Sometimes people decide to take matters into their own hands. Back in , the German anatomist Lorenz Heister who invented the word tracheotomy listed the treatment options for ganglia — wiping the lump with saliva; taking a bullet that had killed a wild animal ideally a stag and strapping it to the cyst; or even rubbing it with the hand of a dead man.

No surprise to hear these treatments have fallen out of favour, but judging by some eye-watering videos on YouTube there is one intervention that plenty of people are still happy to try — hitting the ganglion very hard with a huge book. Even if you have a pain threshold high enough to be on the receiving end of a heavy book, there are good reasons not to do it. The first is that it could cause damage to the surrounding tissue. As well as bad bruising, you can end up breaking a bone, so it is not something most doctors recommend today.

Some might decide to take the risk, but evidence suggests another reason for avoiding this course of action. In , a much-cited study in the world of ganglia reported on people with ganglion cysts, mainly on the wrist. Occasionally you find them on feet and they can form next to any joint in the body.