Our experts at Rebound Physical Therapy know how difficult living with carpal tunnel syndrome can be. Let’s talk about what this syndrome is, what causes it, and how physical therapy can help reduce your symptoms.
What Is Carpal Tunnel Syndrome?
Carpal tunnel syndrome is a condition that affects the nerves in your wrists. This condition causes a set of symptoms that occur in the wrist and hand area. These symptoms can include pain, numbness, or tingling in your:
- Wrist
- Thumb
- Index finger
- Middle finger
- Ring finger
Generally, the numbness or pain sensation starts in the wrist area and spreads the longer it’s left untreated.
How Does Carpal Tunnel Syndrome Cause These Symptoms?
What most people don’t know is that physical issues all the way up to the neck and rib area can be attributed to carpal tunnel syndrome. Your carpal tunnel is a tunnel that’s created by the bones in your wrist. A nerve travels down your arm and through that tunnel to get to your hand. There are also blood vessels that flow through your carpal tunnel as well.
That tunnel can get closed down or encroached upon. When the nerve and blood vessels get impinged upon or entrapped (through either inflammation or closure of that tunnel), then you get those symptoms mentioned above: numbness, pain, tingling, or any combination of those symptoms. These symptoms can occur with activity or at rest. If you have this condition, you’ll be able to tell because, quite frankly, it’s annoying.
What Causes Carpal Tunnel Syndrome?
There are several situations that can cause an encroachment or entrapment of the nerve and vessels in the carpal tunnel. These include:
- Chronic overuse
- Repetitive stress
- Ergonomic positioning
- Incorrect positioning
Some common examples of how this happens include working with a mouse, which compresses that tunnel chronically, or banging a hammer to build something. Any repetitive activity that’s related to posture or ergonomics can irritate the nerve and blood vessels in your carpal tunnels. It can also happen naturally over time as your body changes. Muscle imbalances can lead to inflammation or enclosure of that tunnel, though this can be temporary.
In short, anything that inflames the area or closes it down can negatively affect the nerve and blood vessels going through your carpal tunnel and lead to the above symptoms.
How Does Physical Therapy Help Carpal Tunnel Syndrome?
When you come see a physical therapist, they’re going to examine your body starting up in your neck. This is because the nerves that supply your carpal tunnel start in the neck and go down underneath the clavicle area.
We’ve treated some people with carpal tunnel where simply stretching out their upper body (their upper arm, their neck, and even sometimes around their first rib) gave them relief from the pain in their wrist. We often find that poor posture and muscular imbalances cause changes in the upper body and neck area which contributes to carpal tunnel symptoms.
What Is the Treatment for Carpal Tunnel Syndrome?
Physical therapists will treat the wrist area with manual therapies and modalities to decrease the inflammation. We use manual techniques to free up scar tissue and to open up and make that tunnel more pliable. This also helps get the nerves, vessels, muscles, and tendons throughout that area gliding more smoothly. We do that because, when you get inflammation, body parts in the inflamed area can get sticky and put pressure on your nerves.
We have many modalities that we can use beyond just heat and ice, such as:
- Manual therapies
- Postural improvement exercises
- Stretching exercises
- Education on the proper ergonomic positioning for your keyboard or mouse
- Advice on how to be positioned correctly at your desk
- Protective measures for manual laborers and repetitive work
- Night splints that keep the tunnel open to give your tissues some relief
Call Rebound Physical Therapy for Carpal Tunnel Relief
There are many things that can be done to treat carpal tunnel syndrome. It’s really important to know what causes it because then you can learn what you can do for your body. Knowing your posture type and your movement habits can help you form better habits to help you decrease the inflammation.
Our experts at Rebound Physical Therapy are here to help you with your carpal tunnel syndrome symptoms. We’d love to educate you more about this subject and give you a free physical therapy screening if you’re having symptoms because we know it’s quite annoying to deal with. Luckily, it’s actually pretty easy to treat.
Call us at 785-271-5533 today to schedule a free physical therapy screening.
Tags: aches and pains, Physical Therapy, Rebound Physical Therapy, Physical Therapist, Pain and Inflammation
