Are You Worried With Carpal Tunnel Syndrome?

Are you beginning to feel a little tingle and numbness in your hands? Well, you are amongst millions who are experiencing the dreadful "carpal tunnel sydrome". This is becoming one of the biggest epidemics in the country especially due to the computer and gaming technology. Once thought as a problem for the middle to older generation is now becoming a younger generation problem. I have seen a news report about a young lady who was 9 years old diagnosed with carpal tunnel syndrome because she did a lot of typing on her computer.

What is carpal tunnel syndrome?

According the WebMD, "Carpal Tunnel is pain, tingling and other problems in your hand because of pressure on the median nerve in your wrist. The median nerve and several tendons run from your forearm to your hand through a small space in your wrist called the carpal tunnel. The median nerve controls movement and feeling in your thumb and first three fingers (not your little finger)."


What Causes Carpal Tunnel Syndrome? Photo courtesy of WebMD

From my experience of having carpal tunnel syndrome, mines started from the continual movement of typing. Mines started on my right hand, and then I shifted all the typing on my left, and now both hands were inflammed. So you can have carpal tunnel on both hands. When I was diagnosed with carpal tunnel syndrome, I researched the web on several sites like webmd.com and mayoclinic.com and found out a lot of information about carpal tunnel.

For instance, I have learned that carpal tunnel can also be caused from pregnancy, illnesses from diabetes, hypothyroidism, and rheumatoid arthritis, obesity, making the same hand movements continually, and bending of the wrist in the same motion, and smoking (because smoking can reduce the blood flow to the median nerve).

How Can Carpal Tunnel Be Treated?

I asked my doctor for advice on different treatments. At the time I was given only 2 options; one was to have surgery or physical therapy. I chose the physical therapy. I asked other people who I knew had carpal tunnel about the choice they made, which was surgery, and I knew I didn't want a quick fix because being a typist, I knew I would continue typing because that's my income. I looked into physical therapy as a long-term solution for me because it's something I can do at home or in the office. Above is a chart I got from my physical therapist on exercises I can do to help maintain the pain and it does work for me. I also use the hand braces to sleep because I have found myself bending my wrist while sleeping. So I can say that I don't experience continual pain as I did when I was first diagnosed 2 years ago.

So for those who are suffering from carpal tunnel syndrome, this is a good option even if you choose to have the surgery, you still can do the exercises to maintain your median nerves in your hand from flaming. If you would like a copy of this chart, please send me an email and I'll email it to you.