Can Carpal Tunnel Syndrome Cause Pain In The Armpit

Can your Carpal Tunnel Syndrome cause pain in your armpit?  Here’s a switch; I mean really a switch.

Your wrist and hand symptoms can be caused by the muscles under your arm.

Under your armpit you have muscles that attach from ribs to arm and shoulder.  You have muscles in your chest that also attach to your arm.

When these muscles get tight, they can traction down on the nerves that pass through your arm to your hand.  The nerves hate being pressed on and so they cause discomfort, or symptoms, in your hand.

Although short muscles don’t usually complain, the ones under your armpit can be

uncomfortable when they are in a “knot” or spasm.

The muscles on the side of your back, just behind your armpit, can also be involved (the “lat” muscles).  Those muscles can also have pain when they are in spasm or contraction.

So, you see, this is NOT a case of which comes first–the chicken or the egg.

Even if you were not aware of the armpit pain before your hand pain started, the spasm was most likely already there.  It is just becoming tighter and more noticeable over time.

It is very likely that our carpal tunnel pain is a result of that tightness in the muscles under your armpit.

The good news is that you can press into those armpit muscles by yourself.  It will be uncomfortable because they are tight.  Just keep pressing and feeling and assessing the tightness in those muscles.

By pressing into those muscles with your fingers, it mechanically relaxes them.

You can also massage, stretch or press into your chest muscles to help them relax.

If necessary, go to a massage therapist (check out the “Massage” Category here to find an article that tells how to find one) who knows how to do this work and they can help you get rid of the pain in your armpit as well as your carpal tunnel pain.