How to Relieve Carpal Tunnel Symptoms

Video transcription

Carpal tunnel syndrome is a problem in which the nerves that pass from your forearm into your hand go through a connective tissue band in your wrist and those, that connective band has small holes in which the blood vessels and the nerves pass. With repeated motion or use of your hand and wrist, these connective tissue gets injured and swells and when it swells, it pinches down on those canals with which the nerves and the blood vessels go through and carpal tunnel when the nerves are pinched so badly that you get numbness and tingling in your fingers. And you have three different nerves; you have your radial nerve, your medial nerve and your ulnar nerve and one or all can be affected. The treatment of carpal tunnel is to initially use anti-inflammatory agents such as Advil, Ibuprofen, Aspirin; if you can tolerate Aspirin to reduce the inflammation and swelling of that tissue in your wrist; to eliminate the repetitive use of the wrist that cause the swelling and injury to that connective tissue to begin with and it's recommended that you wear what's called a cock-up wrist splint which can be purchased at most drugstores. It's a split that goes from the palm of the hand to the forearm and keeps the wrist straight. People who have carpal tunnel will notice numbness and tingling in their fingers when they grasp steering wheel of the car and bend their wrist or when they hold it like that or if they write a lot and keep the wrist bent. So the split keeps the wrist straight to minimize pressure of those nerves as they pass through the connective tissue you may have at the wrist. Other things you can do is if these non surgical methods are not successful or have surgery and they'll go in and open up a little tunnel; they lay it open so that the nerve isn't being squeeze or add pressure on it from the connective tissue.