Do you have pain in the palm of your hand? Could it be carpal tunnel syndrome?
Learn what causes that pain in your palm and how to get rid of it in this article.
Pain in the palm of your hand can be referred by the palmaris longus muscle. ‘Referred’ means that a Trigger Point, a highly irritable area, is referring or sending the pain into your hand.
The palmaris longus muscle is on the palm side of your lower arm waaaaay up by your elbow. If you turn your thumb away from your body, the place for you to press is on
the side closest to your waist.
Where?
- Palm side of lower arm
- Near elbow
- Close to body.
Here’s some technical, medical information:
According to Travell & Simons Myofascial Pain and Dysfunction, “Two cases of what appeared to be carpal tunnel syndrome were found to have a variation of the palmaris longus in which the tendon passed beneath, rather than above, the volar carpal ligament. Three other cases proved to have anomalous distal bellies of the palmaris longus which compressed the median nerve against the underlying tendons.”
The causes of your hand symptoms can come from your hand, arm, chest, upper back or neck. The cause of hand pain is rarely where the pain is. And muscles are responsible for most of our pain.
By taking care of your muscles with stretching and massage and by strengthening your back you will be able to avoid a lot of pain. The Myofascial book suggests that surgery is an answer to release the palmaris longus muscle but it is a medical book (and medical people do things like that.)
However, muscles can be released or relaxed manually (by hand) with massage therapy.
Also, according to Travell & Simons, “Myofascial Trigger Points in the palmaris longus muscle may develop as satellites of key TrPs in the distal medial head of the triceps brachii muscle…”
The triceps muscle is on the back side of your upper arm.
So, if you have pain in the palm of your hand, here’s what you can do:
- Have therapeutic massage for your whole arm and hand, chest and upper back. If the therapist knows how to release the scalene muscles in your neck that would be a big plus.
- If you cannot have a professional massage, you can do it yourself. Check out the Category here for Massage for Carpal Tunnel for more information.
- Strengthen your back muscles from your knees to your head.
- Use many different positions; change positions often.
- Stretch in the opposite directions of the positions you use most.
This is how you can get rid of the pain in the palm of your hand. 🙂