Are You Challenged With Carpal Tunnel Syndrome?

When ever someone brings up carpal tunnel syndrome, it’s often with the look of pain in his or her eye. It’s very frustrating to try and move around in your daily activities and continuously get reminded every time you use your wrist or forearm. One type of treatment recommends splinting. Immobilizing the area will slow down the inflammation, reduce movement and begin to give relief.

If you have experienced carpal tunnel syndrome, then you are aware once the split comes off and normal movement begins, you may have a relapse in pain. You also have options of over-the-counter anti-inflammatories and prescription medications. This will help with the inflammation and reduce the swelling in the Median nerve. I would like to look at carpal tunnel syndrome from the Postural Therapy approach. Postural therapy looks to find the Root Cause of your pain. Let’s look and see why this is happening.

If you look at the picture below, the yellow lines are the median nerve. They run from the brachial plexus down into the wrist and fingers. In the smaller round picture, you can see the shoulder joint and the yellow median nerve going downward under the arm pit. The nerve runs down to the hand. Here's where it becomes interesting. Notice this is around the shoulder joint and pectoralis minor of the chest muscles.

When poor posture is held for long periods of time, such as rounded shoulders and midback, the chest muscles begin to shorten and tighten and change the position of the shoulder joint. The shoulder position compensates for the tight pectoralis minor muscles and now you have pressure on the median nerve. The pain is experienced in the wrist area.

Correcting the posture, by balancing the muscles and loading joints (shoulders, hips, knees, and ankles) will take the pressure off the median nerve and the painful carpal tunnel will begin to change. There is also big plus when changing your posture and reducing pain in other inflamed joints. If you have carpal tunnel or know someone who does, contact my office and set up a complimentary postural assessment. Get educated on how you can take control of painful areas and increase your quality of life.  Click here for an appointment.

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