by Tom Nicholson

Relief from carpal tunnel symptoms is not easy to accomplish. After all, your job is what likely brought on your bout of carpal tunnel syndrome, and you can’t always stop doing that! Thousands of people suffer from carpal tunnel syndrome due to the repeated motions that come with their jobs. The symptoms include pain in the wrists, arms, shoulders and neck, to numbness in the fingers and hands. Many times this leads to a debilitating amount of pain that causes you feel useless and with no place to turn.

Many people believe surgery to be the only solution to the problem. They believe surgery will take care of this problem, but the truth is the surgery must be followed with therapy and exercise to prevent it from happening again. There are alternatives to surgery that will prevent or even eliminate this condition. Following these alternatives will obtain good results in time

Why does carpal tunnel syndrome happen? Why is it important to understand carpal tunnel syndrome in helping you decide your course of action? Most carpal tunnel syndrome happens in the wrists. It comes from typing too long, throwing a baseball, painting, or any job that requires a repeated action. The result of this repeated action causes the transverse carpal ligament to tighten up. The transverse carpal ligament is the ligament that bundles all of your other ligaments together at the wrist and gives you strength and leverage.

The tightening of the transverse carpal ligament results in excess pressure on the median nerve in the wrist. This is what causes the weakness, pain and numbing of carpal tunnel as the nerve becomes irritated. The pain is not isolated to the wrist; it may also affect the fingers, hand, arm, and shoulder. This may become very painful and severe enough to prevent a person from working.

Would it make you happy to know there are many physical therapy exercises you can do to alleviate the symptoms of carpal tunnel syndrome? Yes, through a physical therapist or by looking online, you will see there are many stretches you can do to help stretch out the transverse carpal ligament, as well as other massage techniques you can have done that will keep the soft tissue of your hand in a relaxed state. This also alleviates the pressure on the median nerve and relieves a great deal of carpal tunnel pain.

You have the option of having surgery on your wrists. When you have surgery, the transverse carpal ligament is cut to take the pressure off the median nerve. You will need a long time to recover from the surgery and of course, surgery is expensive.

With this in mind, would you still rather have surgery? The best thing to do right now is to learn some stretching exercises as well as better work habits to stop carpal tunnel syndrome before it starts. Try using a natural alternative first before making a decision to have surgery.

About the Author:
Because of the nature of carpal tunnel surgery, CTS sufferers often find that AFTER the surgery, they actually have less hand strength and are unable to maintain a grip on objects. Most doctors agree that surgery is one of the last resorts in treating CTS, because CTS is caused by a strenuous, repetitive motion.