Carpal Tunnel
This common problem often stems from overuse from people who do a lot of typing or strenuous motions with their wrists or hands. Common jobs that lead to carpal tunnel include secretaries and industrial workers. These individuals put a lot of stress on their hands with repetitive motions or vibration. Under these daily stresses, it is common for the bones and joints elbows, wrists and hands to become misaligned. In addition, the muscles can be overused and create imbalances. Leading to abnormal joint mobility causing pain, numbness, tingling or loss of strength in the hands.
Adjust the Pain Away
If your pain, numbness, tingling or loss of strength in your wrists and hands you very likely will benefit from chiropractic care. All of the bones in the wrist and hand can be adjusted. With proper chiropractic care and physical therapy, patients are often able to completely correct the cause of carpal tunnel symptoms.
Carpal tunnel surgery is often very rarely necessary. The surgery, in a nutshell, is little more than cutting the fascia or tissue 
that wraps around the tendons and nerves and blood vessels in the wrist. Sometimes cutting this tunnel open can relieve any pressure or stress on the nerves. Unfortunately, the cause of carpal tunnel is not solved by cutting your wrists. In fact, it may not even help with the symptoms. Misdiagnosing carpal tunnel is unfortunately common. The source of nerve pressure or irritation can come from the neck, shoulder or more common the elbow and forearm.
The pronator teres is a muscle in the forearm that is often overused in blue-collar workers who use their hands a lot during work to grip. The overutilization of the flexors (gripping) in the wrist and forearm can create abnormal joint mobility and stress that cause carpal tunnel like symptoms. Carpal tunnel surgery can fail to even reduce the symptoms in cases like these. Even if the surgery is “successful” you are still left with the abnormal joint mobility and muscle imbalances. Left uncorrected it is likely they will cause other problems besides just carpal tunnel.
Deal With the Cause
A safer, more effective and less expensive option is to find the cause of the carpal tunnel symptoms. A chiropractor with experience adjusting patients with carpal tunnel will likely be able to do this. He or she will be able to evaluate your neck, shoulder, elbow, wrist, and hands to determine where the cause of the symptoms are coming from. The next step is chiropractic adjustments to realign the bones in the neck, shoulder, elbow, wrist or hand that may be putting pressure on the nerves. Physical therapy exercises may be necessary to prevent muscles from being overused from creating abnormal motion or stress on the joints. Sometimes after your chiropractic adjustment, your chiropractor may use supportive taping to help maintain the correction from the adjustment.
Don’t forget that your carpal tunnel symptoms probably took years to develop. It’s not uncommon for the pain or even strength to noticeably improve very quickly with chiropractic care. Sometimes patients can see an immediate difference after their first adjustment. But again, it typically takes a long time to create the problem and will take some time to correct it. Thankfully chiropractic can fix often fix this problem if you find a good chiropractor and give it a chance. If you’ve exhausted all other conservative options, you can always get surgery later but you can never undo carpal tunnel surgery.
*Pro tip: NEVER assume if one chiropractor couldn’t help you that all can’t. This goes for any profession. Most people don’t assume all medical doctors, accountants, electricians, plumbers are bad because one of them didn’t do a good job. Do your research. Read over a couple of local chiropractor websites to see who you feel confident in. Sit down for a consult with more than one chiropractor. If you invest the time and make your health a priority you’ll likely find a good chiropractor who can help you get your hands back to normal.
Schedule or Call Corrective Chiropractic Today 252-758-7583
