When you experience weakness, numbness, tingling or burning pain in your wrists and parts of your hand, you might want to ask your doctor to check for carpal tunnel syndrome. The carpal tunnel is basically a small and narrow passage in the wrist. The median nerve which extends from your lower neck through the length of the arm, moves into the carpal tunnel at the wrist. It controls the feeling and movement of all your fingers except the pinky. The median nerve can become compressed when the bones of your neck misalign or if there is swelling in the carpal tunnel itself. Ask yourself before you go looking only to the wrist, do I have occasional or chronic neck pain as well. This can cause the Carpal Tunnel Syndrome (CTS).
What Causes Carpal Tunnel Syndrome?
Besides the misalignments of the neck and wrist bones rubbing or compressing on the median nerve, obstructed blood flow can be another reason that causes inflammation and pain in the wrist. There are many conditions that can lead to carpal tunnel syndrome such as;
- High blood pressure
- Pregnancy
- Diabetes
- Menopause
- Rheumatoid arthritis
- Wrist fractures
However, repeated extension of the wrist can also cause inflammation of the median nerve and it can lead to carpal tunnel syndrome. Some of the other causes for CTS are;
- Overextending your wrist for repeated motions such as playing the piano or typing
- Over usage of hand held power tools
- Placing your wrist in an extended manner while using the keyboard
At Advanced Physical Medicine, we take a non-steroid, non surgical approach to helping you get back to living a better quality of life. Give us a call at (480) 632-0177 to see if we can help.
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