Carpal Tunnel Syndrome Pain Relief

Carpal tunnel pain

​Carpal tunnel pain is a very common symptom and is characterized by pain and/or numbness and tingling in the wrist, hand, and fingers and is sometimes accompanied by loss of strength in the hand and wrist. The "carpal tunnel" is a narrow passageway on the palm side of the wrist through which the medial nerve and the 9 tendons that flex the fingers travel. The pain and numbness associated with carpal tunnel syndrome is caused by compression of the median nerve as it passes through the carpal tunnel. 

"Carpal Tunnel Syndrome" by BruceBlaus. Blausen.com staff. "Blausen gallery 2014". Wikiversity Journal of Medicine. DOI:10.15347/wjm/2014.010. ISSN 20018762.

Carpal tunnel syndrome is often blamed on excessive use of a computer and/or mouse, using small hand-held tools, using vibrating hand tools, or repetitive flexing of the wrist such as assembly line work. Carpal tunnel syndrome is more common in women than men, can be caused by fluid retention as in pregnancy, or caused by inflammatory conditions. 

When dealing with carpal tunnel it's important to ask the right questions. Here are some of my favorites:

• Why do I only have carpal tunnel pain on one hand?
• Why do only some pregnant women get carpal tunnel syndrome?
• How come I didn't have any pain for 40 years but now I started having pain this year?
• If my carpal tunnel is small and that's the reason I have pain, wouldn't I have always had pain then?
• If computer use is to blame for the pain, how come it hurts more when I sleep than when I'm actually using the computer?
• If I have permanent nerve damage, how come the pain and weakness comes and goes?
• I understand corticosteroid injections might decrease the inflammation, but what is causing the inflammation in the first place?
• If I wear a wrist brace won't the muscles get weaker and lose flexibility over time and isn't that a bad thing for long-term health?
• The surgery cuts the transverse carpal ligament, but isn't that ligament important?
• Isn't the surgery only helping relieve the symptom and not addressing the cause of the pain and numbness?

Rounded shoulder posture

When the shoulders move out of their design position and round forward, they cause internal rotation of the humerus and arm. Internal arm rotation creates a pronated hand position which deceased the efficiency of the elbow and wrist. Over time this shoulder, arm, and hand position can create stress and wear and tear on the elbow, wrist, and hand. 

Pronated hands caused by internal rotation of the arm.

We must remember that the human body works as a unit and the simple motion of picking something up with your hand or typing on a computer requires your hand, wrist, elbow, and shoulder to all work together. When the shoulder is out of proper position, it is unable to help and the workload of hand movements gets shifted to the elbow, wrist, and hand. Rounded shoulder posture causes carpal tunnel syndrome and can also cause tennis elbow, golfers elbow, basal joint arthritis, forward head posture, text neck, and even negatively affect your running performance.

As a Postural Alignment Specialist and Advanced Exercise Therapist, when working with a client with carpal tunnel syndrome I always move away from focusing on the symptom and take a step back and look at their entire body and movement patterns. When a client has carpal tunnel symptoms in the right hand it is often the case that their right shoulder will be more forward and down than the left. This forward rolled shoulder position limits the ability for the shoulder to help the elbow, wrist, and hand in every day movements like typing on a computer, holding a glass to drink out of, and carrying groceries. 

Now we also have to ask "why is one shoulder in a different position than the other shoulder?" Again the body is a unit and often if one hip is elevated or rotated compared to the other the upper body will compensate for this imbalance by pulling one shoulder down. Hip elevation or rotation is often caused by an inability of one hip to flex or extend during everyday movements like walking or sitting and standing out of a chair. ​

Elevated hip posture

The key to figuring out what is causing your carpal tunnel syndrome is to do a full postural evaluation and some functional testing to see what your body is doing and why. After determining the postural imbalances and movement dysfunctions in your body, I am able to instruct you in the corrective exercises that will immediately start improving your postural alignment, movement patterns, and decreasing your pain. Contact me if you are interested in a free posture evaluation and consultation which can be done in my office in Portland or over Skype from anywhere in the world. 

Related articles/videos:
Thoracic kyphosis, sitting posture, and shoulder pain
How to fix neck and shoulder pain
Tennis elbow - why tennis isn't to blame
Why sitting is bad for you