Carpal Tunnel Syndrome in Perumbakkam
Your Trusted Partner in Carpal Tunnel Syndrome
Carpal tunnel syndrome is an extremely common wrist issue. Irritation or damage inside the carpal tunnel in your wrist causes it when swelling presses on your medial nerve. We are here to provide you with top-notch care and guidance to tackle your problems.
Understanding Carpal Tunnel Syndrome
What is Carpal Tunnel Syndrome?
Carpal tunnel syndrome is a health condition that causes symptoms like pain, numbness, tingling and weakness in your hand and wrist.
The carpal tunnel is a space in your wrist bones. It’s like a tunnel road through a mountainside, but instead of making room in the rock for cars, it’s a passageway in your bones that lets tendons, ligament and nerves pass through it to reach your hand.
Carpal tunnel syndrome happens when something irritates or puts extra pressure on the median nurve that runs through your carpal tunnel. The median nerve helps you move your forearm and gives feeling to most of your fingers and hands. If it’s damaged or pressed against the walls of your carpal tunnel, it can send extra or incorrect feelings to your hand and wrist.
Visit a healthcare provider if you’re experiencing pain, numbness or tingling in your hands and wrists. Carpal tunnel syndrome usually responds well to treatment, but it can permanently damage your median nerve if it’s not treated soon enough.
Symptoms
Carpal tunnel syndrome symptoms usually start gradually and include:
- Tingling or numbness: You may notice tingling and numbness in the fingers or hand. Usually the thumb and index, middle or ring fingers are affected, but not the little finger. You might feel a sensation like an electric shock in these fingers.The sensation may travel from the wrist up the arm. These symptoms often occur while holding a steering wheel, phone or newspaper, or may wake you from sleep.
Many people “shake out” their hands to try to relieve their symptoms. The numb feeling may become constant over time.
- Weakness: You may experience weakness in the hand and drop objects. This may be due to the numbness in the hand or weakness of the thumb’s pinching muscles, which are also controlled by the median nerve.
What does Carpal Tunnel syndrome feel like?
Carpal tunnel syndrome can make your wrists, hands and fingers feel uncomfortable. It may feel like pinpricks or like your fingers or hands “fell asleep.” You may also feel numbness that makes you want to shake your hands like you’re flinging water off them.
Carpal tunnel syndrome pain usually feels like it’s coming from inside your hand or wrist — not a skin-level pain like a cut. The pain may feel like a sharp, burning stab or a constant ache.
Some people with carpal tunnel syndrome feel like their hands and grip are weaker than normal. It might feel like you can’t get a solid hold on a mug or pen, even if you’re concentrating on it.
Your hands and fingers may feel clumsy or less able to perform precise motions, like buttoning a shirt or aiming a key into a lock
What causes Carpal Tunnel Syndrome?
Extra pressure on your median nerve causes carpal tunnel syndrome. The carpal tunnel has space for all the parts that pass through it, but if one part of your wrist is swollen or damaged, it can press on other tissue around it, including your median nerve.
Anything that causes swelling or irritation in your wrist can cause carpal tunnel syndrome:
- Repetitive strian
- Arthritis
- Sprains
- Wrist fractures (broken wrist bones).
- Ganglion cysts
What are the risk factors?
Anyone can develop carpal tunnel syndrome, but some people are more likely to, including:
- People who do repetitive motions with their hands and wrists for work (using a computer or swinging a hammer, for example).
- People who use power tools that vibrate (like drills or jackhammers).
- Pregnant people.
- Women and people assigned female at birth
- Adults older than 40.
- People whose biological relatives have carpal tunnel syndrome (it can be hereditary, or passed through generations in families).
Prevention
There are no proven strategies to prevent carpal tunnel syndrome, but you can minimize stress on the hands and wrists with these methods:
- Reduce your force and relax your grip: If your work involves a cash register or keyboard, for instance, hit the keys softly. For prolonged handwriting, use a big pen with an oversized, soft grip adapter and free-flowing ink.
- Take short, frequent breaks: Gently stretch and bend hands and wrists periodically. Alternate tasks when possible. This is especially important if you use equipment that vibrates or that requires you to exert a great amount of force. Even a few minutes each hour can make a difference.
- Watch your form: Avoid bending your wrist all the way up or down. A relaxed middle position is best. Keep your keyboard at elbow height or slightly lower.
- Improve your posture: Incorrect posture rolls shoulders forward, shortening the neck and shoulder muscles and compressing nerves in the neck. This can affect the wrists, fingers and hands, and can cause neck pain.
- Change your computer mouse: Make sure that your computer mouse is comfortable and doesn’t strain your wrist.
- Keep your hands warm: You’re more likely to develop hand pain and stiffness if you work in a cold environment. If you can’t control the temperature at work, put on fingerless gloves that keep the hands and wrists warm.
Diagnosis
Your provider may ask you questions and conduct one or more of the following tests to determine whether you have carpal tunnel syndrome:
- History of symptoms: Your provider will review the pattern of the symptoms. For example, because the median nerve doesn’t provide sensation to the little finger, symptoms in that finger may indicate a problem other than carpal tunnel syndrome. Carpal tunnel syndrome symptoms usually occur while holding a phone or a newspaper or gripping a steering wheel. They also tend to occur at night and may wake you during the night, or you may notice the numbness when you wake up in the morning.
- Physical examination: Your provider will conduct a physical examination. He or she will test the feeling in the fingers and the strength of the muscles in the hand. Bending the wrist, tapping on the nerve or simply pressing on the nerve can trigger symptoms in many people.
- X-ray: Some providers recommend an X-ray of the affected wrist to exclude other causes of wrist pain, such as arthritis or a fracture. However, X-rays are not helpful in making a diagnosis of carpal tunnel syndrome.
- Ultrasound: Your provider may recommend an ultrasound of your wrist to get a good picture of the bones and nerve. This can help determine whether the nerve is being compressed.
- Electromyography: This test measures the tiny electrical discharges produced in muscles. During this test, your provider inserts a thin-needle electrode into specific muscles to evaluate the electrical activity when muscles contract and rest. This test can identify damage to the muscles controlled by the median nerve, and also may rule out other conditions.
- Nerve conduction study: In a variation of electromyography, two electrodes are taped to the skin. A small shock is passed through the median nerve to see if electrical impulses are slowed in the carpal tunnel. This test may be used to diagnose the condition and rule out other conditions.
Treatments
Wrist splinting
A splint that holds the wrist still while you sleep can help relieve nighttime symptoms of tingling and numbness. Even though you only wear the splint at night, it can also help prevent daytime symptoms. Nighttime splinting may be a good option if you’re pregnant because it does not involve the use of any medications to be effective.
Nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs)
NSAIDs, such as ibuprofen (Advil, Motrin IB, others), may help relieve pain from carpal tunnel syndrome in the short term.
There isn’t evidence, however, that these drugs improve carpal tunnel syndrome.
Corticosteroids
Your provider may inject the carpal tunnel with a corticosteroid such as cortisone to relieve pain. Sometimes the provider uses an ultrasound to guide these injections.
Corticosteroids decrease inflammation and swelling, which relieves pressure on the median nerve. Oral corticosteroids aren’t considered as effective as corticosteroid injections for treating carpal tunnel syndrome.
Lifestyle and home remedies
These steps may provide temporary symptom relief:
- Take short, frequent breaks from repetitive activities involving the use of the hands.
- Lose weight if you are overweight or obese.
- Rotate the wrists and stretch the palms and fingers.
- Take a pain reliever, such as aspirin, ibuprofen (Advil, Motrin IB, others) or naproxen sodium (Aleve).
- Wear a snug, not tight, wrist splint at night. You can find these over the counter at most drugstores or pharmacies.
- Avoid sleeping on the hands.
If pain, numbness or weakness recurs and persists, see your provider.
Frequently Asked Question on Carpal Tunnel Syndrome
- Resting the affected hand and avoiding activities that aggravate symptoms.
- Wearing a wrist splint to keep the wrist in a neutral position and relieve pressure on the median nerve.
- Pain relief medications or nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) to reduce inflammation and alleviate pain.
- Physical therapy exercises to improve hand strength and flexibility.
- Corticosteroid injections to reduce inflammation and relieve symptoms.
- In severe cases or when conservative treatments fail, surgery (carpal tunnel release) may be recommended to relieve pressure on the median nerve.