Carpal Tunnel: Symptoms, Causes, Treatments
Carpal Tunnel is so prevalent in America today that the National Center for Health Statistics estimates 260,000 carpal tunnel release surgeries are performed each year. This potentially debilitating condition is caused by excess pressure on the median nerve – a large nerve running down your forearm that controls your thumb and first three fingers. When this excess pressure builds, you might experience numbness in your fingers, even a tingling sensation, and general pain in the hand and wrist. This pain can vary, from a minimal, occasional tingling, to a constant, throbbing pain that makes normal activity impossible.
Carpal tunnel syndrome has many causes, including repetitive hand movements, arthritis, hand/wrist injury, and pregnancy. Work-related carpal tunnel most often develops in industries that involve extensive manual labor or prolonged typing on a keyboard. Depending on the severity of your pain, your carpal tunnel pain might be treatable through simple rehabilitation and modifying the ergonomics of your workspace.
For more painful carpal tunnel syndrome, treatment might be more extensive. At Discover Optimal Healthcare, one of our pain management specialists can examine the severity of your carpal tunnel, and recommend an effective treatment plan. Here are several treatment techniques that your pain management specialist might prescribe:
- Hand splints and braces – immobilizes the hand, allowing median nerve inflammation to subside
- Heat and Cold treatments – for mild-to-moderate pain, these can reduce inflammation around the median nerve
- Anti-inflammatory medication – reduces swelling in the wrist suffering from carpal tunnel
At Discover Optimal Healthcare, we strive to relieve our patients’ carpal tunnel syndrome pain through non-invasive, non-surgical treatments. So, before you schedule a painful carpal tunnel surgery, contact one of our pain management specialists, who can design a personalized treatment plan that relieves your hand and wrist pain through non-invasive solutions.
