Have you felt tingling or numbness in your hand and wrist for weeks or even months? Have you experienced a sharp, piercing pain shooting through the wrist and up your arm? Just a passing cramp? It’s possible you have carpal tunnel syndrome, a painful progressive condition caused by compression of a key nerve in the wrist. At Dynamic Health, we see people across many careers and walks of life encounter this arm and hand pain, citing that, “Something just isn’t working right.”
Arm and hand pain can be caused by a variety of conditions, but often the culprit is carpal tunnel, which is often a combination of ligament problems, muscle recruitment problems, chronic inflammation, joint or bursa problems and nerve problems.
Carpal Tunnel Symptoms
Symptoms usually start gradually, with frequent burning, tingling or itching numbness in the palm of the hand and the fingers, especially the thumb and the index and middle fingers. Some carpal tunnel sufferers say their fingers feel useless and swollen, even though little or no swelling is apparent. The symptoms often first appear in one or both hands during the night, since many people sleep with flexed wrists. A person with carpal tunnel syndrome may wake up feeling the need to “shake out” the hand or wrist.
As symptoms worsen, people might feel tingling during the day. Decreased grip strength may make it difficult to form a fist, grasp small objects or perform other manual tasks. In chronic and/or untreated cases, the muscles at the base of the thumb may waste away. Some people are unable to tell between hot and cold by touch.
Carpal Tunnel Causes
Carpal tunnel syndrome is often the result of a combination of factors that increase pressure on the median nerve and tendons in the carpal tunnel, rather than a problem with the nerve itself. Most likely, the disorder is due to a congenital predisposition – the carpal tunnel is simply smaller in some people than in others.
Other contributing factors include trauma or injury to the wrist that cause swelling, such as sprain or fracture; overactivity of the pituitary gland; hypothyroidism; rheumatoid arthritis; mechanical problems in the wrist joint; work stress; repeated use of vibrating hand tools; fluid retention during pregnancy or menopause, or the development of a cyst or tumor.
Arm and Hand Pain Treatment
Our goal is to treat your condition, not just manage your pain. To achieve this goal, every patient receives a thorough exam including patient history, neurological and orthopedic evaluation and diagnostic X-rays when necessary. This results in a more accurate working diagnosis. Once we have a working diagnosis of the root cause of your pain, the medical staff will give you a detailed report of our findings.
Our diagnosis-based treatment plans incorporate a combination of medical diagnostics, injections, rehabilitative treatments and chiropractic adjustments. Above all, we are focused on helping you find relief and minimizing the likelihood of re-occurrence.
Don’t let arm and hand pain like carpal tunnel syndrome impede your enjoyment of life. Let our specialists restore your health and vitality with our comprehensive pain management protocols. Call 704-525-6288 today to reserve your time with one of our pain management providers! We offer new client appointments within one to three days, and we are one of the only pain management clinics to provide image-guided injections!
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