What if you have carpal tunnel syndrome? Most medical professionals will say there is no non-invasive remedy for carpal tunnel syndrome.
Doctors usually treat the symptoms, but not the source of the problem.
Please read this carefully. The real reason you have carpal tunnel syndrome is because of muscle imbalance in your forearms. Here is where the majority of medical professionals fail to make the connection.
Let me explain. The muscles in the forearm move the wrist and fingers. When you open and close your hand, that motion is actually being done by the forearm muscles.
You can prove this for yourself by gripping different parts of your forearm as you move your fingers and hand around. Feel what the muscles are doing.
Nearly all of the muscles that are used in computing, using a mouse, playing the guitar or piano, and just about everything done with your hands, are forearm muscles.
When you lift weights with a closed fist, you are actually gripping using the forearm muscles. This is so no matter what group of muscles you are trying to strengthen.
In order sucessfully treat carpal tunnel syndrome yourself, here is what you need to know:
The flexor muscles are the ones on the front side of the forearm. These muscles close the fingers and wrist. The extensor muscles on the backside of the arm, pull the fingers and the wrist backward.
When you work (and play) the flexors are doing much more work than the extensors. The extensor muscles become relatively weaker because they do not have to push anything.
The flexor muscles get shorter and thicker. The tendons of the flexor muscles also become shorter and thicker Tendons attach muscle to bone.
The tendons that run from the forearms to the fingers are long and skinny. Nine flexor tendons go through the carpal tunnel.
The shortened flexor muscles pull the wrist forward, decreasing the size of the carpal tunnel. The thicker tendons now take up more space in the carpal tunnel.
This further leads to more inflammation and irritation. And the median nerve gets pinched more and more.
The reason night splints help is that they maintain the hand in a neutral position when sleeping. Thus they keep the carpal tunnel open.
But they do not fix muscle imbalance. They aren't curing carpal tunnel syndrome. You can sleep better but your carpal tunnel syndrome is going to get worse unless you do something to reverse your situation.
Here's an experiment for you. Hold your hands in a neutral position. By that I mean that the back of your hand is in a straight line with the back of the forearm. Now keeping your hands in the neutral position, bring them down to your sides. Try forgetting about your hands for a couple minutes.
If it takes effort to keep your hands in a neutral position, they are out of balance. If your muscles are balanced they would hold your hand in a neutral position without any effort on your part.
The remedy is to loosen and lengthen the flexor muscles. Most programs and physical therapists use stretches. While these can work eventually, it requires a lot of persistence. Some people will quit if they don't get speedy results.
When I was having hand problems, doing stretches didn't work for me.
What did work were targeted self-massage techniques. I developed methods that did not require using my overworked hands.
They are more effective than stretches. This is because, when you stretch a muscle, the portions of the muscle that are "normal" will stretch the easiest. Those portions that are stuck in contraction or have adhesions (muscle cells stuck to each other) will resist the stretch. So it takes more persistence to get to them.
Also if there are tears in the tendons, stretching is not a good idea.
Go to: to learn more about effective and specific techniques that do not require using your hands. Nor do you need special equipment. The majority of massage therapists haven't studied this. You can work more effectively on yourself. It is easy when you know how. Working on your forearms and tendons a few minutes at a time, a couple times a day will do you more good, and save you tons of money and time.
The reasons these work so incredibly because you directly loosen the tightness in the tendons and muscles, increase the blood supply to them, directly unstick muscle fibers that have stuck together, as well as unstick muscle cells that are stuck in contraction.
No comments:
Post a Comment