Carpal Tunnel therapy

Sun Jan 30 22:49:55 UTC 2005

I've been meaning to write this out for someone else who needs advice on
carpal tunnel, so this email is a good incentive.

----------------------------------------------------------------------

I went through this some years ago. I thought carpal tunnel was some sort of
new-age ailment and never gave it a thought. Then, in the middle of typing a
large manuscript, my wrists felt like they were getting electric shocks, and
they started to hurt like crazy. Driving the car aggravated the problem
significantly.

It was very scary, I thought I would have to give up typing altogether. My
GP sent me off to see someone at Wellesly, and the guy immediately wanted to
do surgery. Surgery may or may not work, but the thought of permanently
screwing up my wrists made me look for an alternative solution. My GP
thought the surgery was the answer, but he didn't press me on it.

Then my GP then sent me off for physiotherapy, and that didn't seem to help
much. It briefly alleviated the symptoms, but any typing brought them back
immediately. Massage therapy had similar results.

I then talked to a pleasant rheumatoid arthritis specialist at St. Mikes. He
didn't have any suggestions.

I found that wrist splints were no help at all.

For the fourth visit to my GP, I asked if something like a sports medicine
doctor would be a good idea. After all, this must be something that happens
to athletes - albeit in a different part of their body. He then recommended
Dr. Robert Grisdale (416-485-1344 x 432), who is a Chiropracter and sports
medicine therapist. I must admit that I had some doubts about chiropracters
in general, but Grisdale showed me how to fix the problem, so I'm a convert.
He worked on my upper back and gave me a bunch of stretching exercises that
really cured the problem. At first I did the exercises on a twice-daily
basis. Then I dropped slowly down to once a day and then to 'as needed'. The
total exercise routine takes about 10 minutes, involves a bunch of stretches
and a brief workout with a stretchy band.

Since then I've typed a 700+ page manuscript on analog electronics without
any major twinges.

Subsequently, I read a theory posted on the net to the effect that the wrist
problems are related to muscles in the upper back that tighten across the
shoulders. Certainly, the muscles in that area were totally locked into
knots and Grisdale got them loosened up again. I can't provide a mechanism,
but it did seem to work. Grisdale's comments was 'You've been building up a
debt in your body, and now you need to start repayment.'

My mother (always ask mom!) mentioned that Vitamin B6 had the effect of
shrinking nerve bundles. The root of the Carpal Tunnel problem as I
understand it is that the nerve connections abraid on the sides of the
tunnel, they become inflamed, and worsens the problem. So shrinking the
cable going through that opening can help. I started at 100mG doses and then
when the problem got better dropped back to 25mG on a daily basis. B6 can be
gotten from the drug store or wherever without prescription. I can't be
absolutely positive that this works, but my impression was that it helped
and my understanding is that B6 is pretty benign.

Some additional points:

- I have a great GP, who I can go back to, if I'm not satisfied with some
specialist, and request someone else. He never gets huffy. It's great to
have someone like this who acts as a kind of traffic cop and is not
judgemental.

- Yoga helps a lot. Stretching exercises seem to be the key to solving many
of these aches and pains. I did yoga exercises one winter at a local rec
centre and that made a positive difference. I also adapted some yoga
streching exercises into my exercise routine. They seem to work really well.
There are different yoga instructors, you need to find one who works at your
pace.

- Of course, you need to take regular breaks. Binge typing is what got me
into this mess in the first place. You *must* have a proper chair, at the
proper height, with a proper desk. When I got this problem I was working on
a table and sitting on a barstool. I now cringe when I think of it. Your
forearms should be level.

- I didn't use a different mouse or keyboard, I stayed with the ones I have.
But I'll bet a cordless mouse would help, and probably a keyboard that
breaks into two halves. I'd do those things if I got into another episode.

I hope this helps. Maybe we should have a demonstration of the stretching
exercises at some TLUG meeting ;).

Peter

On Sun, Jan 30, 2005 at 01:02:13PM -0500, Peter King wrote:
> For the past few weeks I've been having the classic Carpal Tunnel
> Syndrome: transient tingling, numbness, burning in the thumb, index,
> and middle finger of the hand, with some associated shooting pains
> up the forearm. I had a bout of this four years ago, which led to my
> learning to touch-type; splinting the wrist and relaxing it for a few
> days helped alleviate the pain. This time it's much worse and seems 
> rebarbative.
> 
> I went to my doctor, who diagnosed CTS and ordered up blood tests and
> nerve conduction tests to be sure, but then *immediately* began to
> talk about surgery. Everything I've read on the Net says that surgery
> really ought to be a last resort, only after six months to a year of
> working with "conservative" (non-interventionist) therapies. Plus the
> fact that I don't really want my carpal ligament severed.
> 
> It struck me that this group must have a fair amount of collective
> experience with this medical problem, and, just possibly, also have
> some collective wisdom about how to deal with it. I don't need medical
> information; I have all that. What I want to know is what people have
> tried and how successful (or not) it may have been -- anecdotal reports
> are just the ticket. I'll pay for the physiotherapy if that's the way to
> go; I want this problem *gone*.
> 
> What I've tried to date: wrist splinting, either all day or at night only,
> both apparently ineffective; strong doses of ibuprofen as anti-inflammatory;
> lightening up (but not swearing off) keyboarding; and extensive complaining.
> 
> -- 
> Peter King			 	peter.king-H217xnMUJC0sA/PxXw9srA at public.gmane.org
> Department of Philosophy
> 215 Huron Street
> The University of Toronto		    (416)-978-3788 ofc
> Toronto, ON  M5S 1A1
>        CANADA
> 
> http://individual.utoronto.ca/pking/
> 
> =========================================================================
> GPG keyID 0x7587EC42 (2B14 A355 46BC 2A16 D0BC  36F5 1FE6 D32A 7587 EC42)
> gpg --keyserver pgp.mit.edu --recv-keys 7587EC42

-- 
Peter D. Hiscocks                         	   
Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering    
Ryerson University,                    
350 Victoria Street,
Toronto, Ontario, M5B 2K3, Canada

Phone:   (416) 979-5000 Ext 6109
Fax:     (416) 979-5280
Email:   phiscock-g851W1bGYuGnS0EtXVNi6w at public.gmane.org
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