NON-SURGICAL Option for HEALING Carpal Tunnel Syndrome

Yes you read this title correctly - YOU DON'T NEED SURGERY TO HEAL YOUR CARPAL TUNNEL SYNDROME!!! You can HEAL your carpal tunnel with simple massage - specifically trigger point therapy.

I wrote this blog entry because I really felt the need to pass my story onto others. I hope this can help someone else out there that has carpal tunnel and is trying to find out a way to be healed without surgery. Below I will tell you about getting carpal tunnel and the process I went through to heal myself. I'll tell you what worked for me, and what didn't.

At the time, I was working as a Registered Nurse at a home infusion pharmacy as an intake specialist. What that meant was that I was on the computer a whole lot during the day doing very repetitive movements on the keyboard, with my mouse, and with my phone.

After about six months of working, I suddenly started developing severe pain in both of my hands. The pain then turned into weakness and numbness. My friends, family, and co-workers all told me that I had carpal tunnel syndrome. I was devistated!

As a side note, I do have to admit here that I never went to a physician to get an official diagnosis (a physical therapist did give me an unoffical one though). However, I have learned being a nurse, you don't go to a surgeon unless you want to be cut open, and I didn't want to be cut open. I wanted to know what my other options were besides surgery. You don't go to a surgeon for that!

 I had no doubt that I had carpal tunnel and so I was going to try EVERYTHING I possibly could before turning to surgery to fix my problems. I started using the maximum does of Ibuprofen daily. That dose by the way is 800 mg every 8 hours by mouth - ONLY do this if you have great kidneys AND you are drinking lots and lot of water. Personally I just popped 4 of the 200mg pills instead of getting a doctors order for the 800 mg tabs, remember generic brand will save you money. Ibruprofen is the correct drug to use for this. It is the best NSAID (non-steroidal anti-inflamatory drug) out there for inflamation. You will probably be taking it for several weeks.
I also got splints for my forearms and hands to try and stabilize them while working. It didn't help, and the pain and weakness and numbness was getting worse! I'm sure this was because I couldn't rest my arms and hands. If I could have stopped using them completely, resting, and taking ibuprofen I'm sure the carpal tunnel would have also gone away. I was the provider for my family. Not working was not an option.

I was worried that I was not going to be able to do my job if this kept up. I would NOT recommend you wasting your money on these braces. THEY DON'T WORK! They just make it worse from what I could tell. Because my forearm and wrist was wrapped up tight, it made it much more difficult to use my hands, wrist and forearm, thus inflaming the carpal tunnel and making things even worse. Or maybe things were just getting worse because the braces were not helping. I couldn't really tell either way, but the fact was that they didn't help!

One day on the job, I ran into a physical therapist, and I asked if she had any suggestions about how to help carpal tunnel. The first thing she did was tap on the bottom of my wrist, right over the carpal tunnel, where the median nerve runs. In anatomy, the carpal tunnel is a literal tunnel in between the carpal bones that all the tendons for the hand pass through. The tendons become inflamed and start pinching off nerves.

When my carpal tunnel was tapped on by the physical therapist, I immediately got a shot of electric pain through my whole hand! I instantly pulled away from the electric shot of pain. The physical therapist told me that what she did was the offical test for a carpal tunnel diagnoses, and that yes in fact I DID have carpal tunnel syndrome.
The physical therapist showed me some stretches I could do to help. Personally, I didn't notice that these helped much either.
As I was finally realizing that my last option was surgery, I was in the break room at work wearing a large black brace on each arm/wrist/hand. It's not like anyone could miss it! Someone in the breakroom that was getting a snack asked me what was going on. I explained that I had carpal tunnel and it looks like I was going to have to have surgery, and I was pretty upset about the whole idea. I know several people that have got this surgery and it does not help the carpal tunnel go away. Plus, being a nurse I understand that all procedures (especially surgery!) can have serious complications and so I really wanted to avoid surgery at all costs.
This saint of a person then told me about trigger point therapy. I wish I could remember who this angel was because they would get a HUGE thanks from me!! He explained what trigger point therapy is based on, with the premice that throughout your body there are trigger points, basically nerve centers embeded DEEP in muscles, that can release tension throughout the body. He explained that carpal tunnel is actually not a problem in the hand but in the forearm and/or the shoulder with the bracial nerve plexus, which is a huge set of nerves in your shoulder. The problem is with the nerves. He told me that working the trigger points on the forearm should take the carpal tunnel away.
This all made so much sense!! As an infusion nurse, when I stuck someone with a needle to start an IV, occasionally I would hit a nerve, immediately removing the needle. However, when you hit a nerve it feels the same way that carpal tunnel feels like a jolt of electricity or "electric shock".

The test the physical therapist did on me was nerve pain. I couldn't beleive what I was hearing. It sounded a bit like hocus pocus but I heard so much truth too. Could it really be that simple as MASSAGE??? I was very skeptical that this would work. I've always been one that is leary about alternative medicine. I was ready to try anything though. What could it hurt? I was willing to put a little time and money into trying something that might prevent surgery.So I went home and did some homework on trigger point therapy. I immediately ordered the thera cane massager, workbook, and wooden knobble massager.

Thera Cane Massager - I never ended up using this. I ordered it, and tried it out and it never got deep enough on my back for me to use it again. I'm sure this was user error. It wasn't helpful at all on my forearms. I gave it to charity. There are lots of other brands out there of this too. I don't know much about it because it didn't work for me. This won't be helpful for the trigger point therapy you need for your forearms.

Trigger Point Therapy Workbook - this is pretty in depth. I glanced at the section for the forearm and then started to dig in with the wooden knoble. After my inital glance I never picked the book up again, so I don't recommend buying it. I'll save you bunches of money by not having to buy this. The picture below will show you where you should start massaging:

Focus on massaging all the muscle in the forearm. Both on top and on bottom. Dig in them deep. Along the whole muscle - with all the muscles. Remember you have about 20 different muscles in the forearm. Your hands are very complex, and it's these muscles that allow your hands to move the way that they do.

This is the type of wooden knobble I used. This is the piece of equipment I recommend over ANYTHING else!!! Now knowing how helpful this was, and the fact that it was the one thing that did work so well I would pay over $100 for it today. But it's not that expensive. I just looked on amazon and it's only $17.

What is so amazing about this tool, is that it's super easy to use, but it can REALLY dig into your tissue without much force or strength at all. This is so important because you will be massaging your forearms yourself, and already having carpal tunnel makes it impossible for traditional massage. Your hands are in so much pain and have so much weakness massage is the last thing it feels like you can do. So this wooden knobble will let you massage your forearm without hurting your hands. IT'S SOOOOOOOOOO WONDERFUL!!!!

Do you want to know the best part of this story? After massaging my forearms for just THREE days the pain and numbness went away!!!!!! I have not had carpal tunnel syndrome since!!!! I don't think I would have believed this if someone told me that this was possible. I swear on everything that I know and who I am as a good Christian woman. It only took three days for my body to repair itself with the use of massage.

Now that being said, I had to upkeep on the massage or I could feel my hands getting stressed again. The first few days, I massaged for 6-10 times a day for just 30 seconds to a minute. For instance I would massage when I stopped at a red light, when I was chatting with someone on the phone, or waited for the microwave to heat my lunch. You can find 30 seconds very easily when you think about it. Just give yourself that time. It's worth it.

 I did VERY deep massage. It kind of hurt actually. But you want to make sure that you get deep enough to get to the trigger point. I didn't just do it in that one spot that the picture shows. I did it all over my forearm muscles. I didn't have to move to the top of my arm or shoulder.

Who knows if the trigger point therapy part of all of this is really correct or not. I really don't care. I'm giving credit here to trigger point therapy because that is where I started from, and that is what helped me get to where I'm at.

After about a week of using the wooden knobble massager, I didn't have to use it anymore. Almost daily, I would quickly massage my forearms and hands for just about 10-20 seconds. If I had worked an extra long week then I would have to do it more often. Now, after 7 years (I don't work on a computer anymore) I just have to massage my forearms once every few months when I over-extend my computer time.

I have also found in maintaing my carpal tunnel syndrome-FREE life, the stretches that the physical therapist does help too. It just didn't help when the carpal tunnel was actue and so painful and inflamed.

I wish you luck as you try to figure this out for yourself. I hope that something I have written here might help you, or someone you know that is dealing with this painful syndrome.