Crack My Knuckle

I know this question is sort of awkward, but does cracking your knuckles give you artheritis? I'm one of the few kids who crack my knuckles a lot and who are able to actually put up with that freaky sound when you do it. It creeps my friends out, sometimes for the crickle-crackle sound and sometimes that they think that I might get a disease when I'm older.

This crack-my-knuckle thing never creeped me out before. I mean, my dad does it constantly... he doesn't have artheritis (or any disease, in fact). My mom does it, my sister does it... what about them? And if this is really true, why would they let me crack my knuckles at all?

Here's what happened a week ago in Reading class. Our Reading class is exceptionally loud, and the teacher is pretty much OK with that (We were supposed to have a "group discussion", so she allowed us to be loud.) My group was done with our discussion, so we had to work on this stupid packet that made us burn our heads just trying to find the information necessary. I might have cracked my knuckle once, and the girl next to me put her hands on her ears. "No, no, please! Stop!" she cried. I had to instantly stop with the crickle-crackle, even though I wasn't even done.

All through last year, my friend kept telling me that I was gonna get a very bad disease if I kept cracking my knuckles like that. He told me he was never able to do it and it would be quite freaky if he could. The kid still tells me that to this day T_T.

Help me! I don't want to suffer artheritis when I get older! Please people, comment on this journal and tell me whether or not this is true!