Wrist Pain And Avoiding Carpal Tunnel Surgery
I have been helping people suffering from wrist pain to avoid carpal tunnel surgery since the beginning of my practice.
Carpal Tunnel Syndrome is caused by repetitive motions, over-use of the hand or an accident resulting in trauma to the wrist. Your job as therapist is to help find the cause and correct the problem. To investigate the cause you want to look at the type of work they do, the sports they play, any hobbies and even bad posture. For example, using a mouse for the computer in the incorrect posture will eventually cause wrist pain or carpal tunnel syndrome.
Most surgeons who have diagnosed carpal tunnel believe you must perform surgery on the carpals in order to correct the problem, which is not true. In all my carpal tunnel clients I found the problem to be either the muscles or the tendons. If you are not able to help your client by massaging the muscles and tendons then I recommend looking into nutritional, emotional, or mental problems, or possible energy blockages (which I address during my sessions).
I remember as a child watching my mother go through three surgeries, and as an young adult I watched her endure two more. Needless to say they were not successful surgeries. Throughout the next 8 years I heard her complaining about her wrist several times and she was thinking of going to see the doctor again. At that time I was about a year into my practice and living in VA, and she lived in MI. I told her to wait until I could visit her there before going to see the doctor. She waited, and less than month later I was able to travel there.
I worked on the arm starting from the wrist and moving up to the elbow. I found the muscles and tendons to be very tight and sore. Next I worked the muscles and tendons for about 30 minutes using long storks with circle friction. I then continued to work up to the shoulder. In some cases you will find tightness all the way up the arm, through the shoulder and up into the neck and into the rotator muscles. It is important to check all these muscles.
After working all these areas for a total of 50 minutes I started working her hand and found it to be very tight and sore, so I worked the entire hand. The tendons were very tight and tender to the touch. After loosening the hand up I looked at her and asked her how it felt. “Great”, she replied, “It sure did hurt when you were working on it but now it feels great.”
We did a couple more sessions before I had to return to VA. She did not have any pain for a year after that, at which time we did one more therapy and the pain was gone. I never hear her complain about her wrist any more.
Rev. Brian