Should you wear a wrist brace if you have carpal tunnel symptoms in your wrist, hand and arm?
Well, the purpose of a brace is to prevent you from working or sleeping with your wrist in a bent position. The neutral position for your wrist–and the one we should use the most–is the straight wrist.
Doing tasks with a straight wrist generally doesn’t aggravate the muscles around the carpal tunnel.
If you wake in the morning with carpal tunnel symptoms that are worse, because you sleep with your hands and wrists all curled up, then wear a brace at night.
If your carpal tunnel symptoms are worse during the day, then wear a brace during the day.
The idea of the wrist brace is to help you remember not to overextend or stress your wrist. It will restrict your movements and make it more difficult for you to aggravate your carpal tunnel area.
If you were to wear a brace all day and all night, the muscles around your wrist would weaken. A brace is like a girdle: it prevents you from using your muscles and they become weak.
We sure don’t want weak muscles!
If you feel that a wrist brace helps you, wear it only part of the day or during the night, whenever you need it most.
What should you do the rest of the time?
- Move your wrist, arms and hands in many different positions.
- Stretch your hands and arms in the opposite direction of the one you are usually in.
- Open your hands and your chest.
- Lift your chest.
- Lift and rotate your shoulders, especially back.
- Start walking and swing your arms at your sides sometimes straight and sometimes bent at the elbow.
- Hold your arms straight out sideways from your shoulders and rotate your hands. Make circles in one direction and then in the other direction.
If you move in a variety of ways, your muscles will be much happier, and you can reduce your carpal tunnel symptoms.
It takes a lot of these counter-movements for you to reduce your carpal tunnel symptoms, but…
You Are Worth It!