Carpal Tunnel Syndrome
Wrist pain, numbness in the hands, tingling, shoulder pain, loss of grip strength and hand pain at night can all be signs that you are suffering from a common condition called carpal tunnel syndrome. This condition is often caused by excessive keyboard use, poor posture and other repetitive movements of the shoulder, arm, wrist and hand.
What is Carpal Tunnel Syndrome?
Carpal tunnel syndrome is a result of any kind of pinch of the median nerve. The median nerve originates in the neck, travels through the shoulder, down past the elbow and into the wrist and finally terminates in the hand providing nerve flow to the thumb, the pointer finger and the index finger.
The nerve roots that form the median nerve come from the neck. These nerve roots can become pinched from bad posture, stress and injuries such as whiplash (either recent or old).
Fine, repetitive movements (such as keyboarding) can cause irritation within the tunnel. This tunnel is made up of ligaments, tendons and bones in the wrist and allows the median nerve to pass from the forearm through the wrist and into the hand. Inflammation of any of these structures can cause swelling and a pinch of the median nerve causing pain or other symptoms.
In many patients, carpal tunnel symptoms come from compression of the median nerve in both the neck and the wrist.
In the early stages of carpal tunnel syndrome the symptoms will be intermittent and often include numbness or pain in the hand(s) at night. As the condition worsens the symptoms will become constant and will start to affect your ability to work with your hands.
Treatment for carpal tunnel syndrome has to be started as soon as possible in order to obtain maximum relief from your symptoms. Even with early, adequate treatment symptoms can be difficult to resolve.
Chiropractic treatment includes in office procedures, specific therapies that the patient completes at home and nutritional support. Each of these different therapies help reduce inflammation that accumulates around the median nerve. Since the roots of the median nerve come from the neck, chiropractic adjustments often relieve pressure on the nerve and help improve the patients symptoms.