subject: Carpal Tunnel And Chiropractic Care [print this page] In our office we have many patient's with numbness and tingling in there hands which can have many causes. What I do in the office is find out what is causing this numbness and tingling. A major cause of the numbness and tingling is carpal tunnel which is not well understood by patients or even some doctors.
Carpal tunnel syndrome (CTS) is an entrapment of the median nerve in the wrist. Basically the median nerve is being compressed when it travels through carpal tunnel (tunnel in between the bones of the wrist). The main symptom of carpal tunnel is numbness of the thumb, index, long and half of the ring finger. The numbness often is worse at night which could be because the wrists are flexed by some people when they sleep or the blood flow slows at night possible leading to more swelling increasing the symptoms. Some studies say sleeping position such as sleeping on one's side could possible increase symptoms due to wrist position. Sometimes the pain can be relieved by wearing a wrist splint that prevents wrist flexion. A frequent problem of people who have carpal tunnel is they lose grip strength. Long standing carpal tunnel syndrome can lead to permanent nerve damage with constant numbness, atrophy (decrease in muscle mass) of the thinner eminence (group of muscles in part of the hand by the thumb), and muscle weakness.
Prevention is always the best way to avoid the possibility of developing carpal tunnel syndrome. Avoiding certain activities such as repetitive hand movements and stressful manual movements would help. Healthy habits such as work place modification through use of ergonomic equipment (wrist rest and mouse pads) taking breaks, using keyboard alternatives (digital pen, voice recognition and dictation) can be beneficial as well.
Some treatments for carpal tunnel that are used are local corticosteroid injection, splinting, oral corticosteroids, omega 3 fatty acids which acts as a anti-inflammatory, B vitamins which helps to heal damaged nerves and sometimes surgery. In our office we will perform chiropractic adjustments if there is a spinal connection to the carpal tunnel syndrome such as a pinched nerve in the neck, cold laser therapy which involves use using infrared light to decrease inflammation and to speed up healing of the damaged median nerve. With cold laser therapy there is no pain and the procedure takes about ten minutes. We also have physical therapy in the office which aides in the patients treatment.
We have been taking care of conditions such as carpal tunnel and many other problems such as neck and low back pain Medford NY, pinched nerves, numbness and tingling in the feet, disc herniations, spinal stenosis, TMJ and headaches for over the past 15 years. Our office is located at 2799-5 Route 112, Medford, NY 11763. If you would like to make an appointment or have any questions please call us at (631)447-2299 or go to www.totalchiro.com and you can email us your questions. We take most insurance plans and have affordable rates if you have no insurance.
