A nurse wrote to a carpal tunnel pain forum wondering why she has pain in her hand. She wondered if it is Carpal Tunnel Syndrome. She said her doctors were confused by her symptoms.
Well, most doctors don’t know much about muscles and pain because that’s not what was taught in medical school.
But she recognized that when she gave injections her symptoms would get worse. And she was giving 100 injections every day!
Any small repetitive movement that you do can cause hand and wrist and arm pain.
Another hospital employee who ripped open lots of bandage packages each day developed pain, too.
And gardeners who twist their wrist as they pull weeds can develop hand, wrist and arm pain, too.
Watch your lower arm when you pretend to do the little movement that you suspect may be causing your pain.
Do you see the muscle moving? Place your other arm firmly on the forearm of the affected arm. Can you feel the muscle moving when you do the little movement? (If not, hold a little more tightly.)
Here’s what I suspect: The muscle in your lower arm (located pretty much between mid-arm and elbow)is aggravated and it’s causing your carpal tunnel-like symptoms.
Massage or cold therapy to the area will help the muscles relax. Cold also reduces nervy pain. Use these therapies on your whole lower arm and wrist rather than just on the wrist. You can use cold packs, bags of frozen peas or a basin full of cold or iced water.
Whenever we have pain there is a reason. Pain is your body telling you that you are doing something wrong.
In this case, think about the small movements you do just before your carpal tunnel pain kicks in.
“But I have to do it this way?”
Most of the time there are alternatives that won’t aggravate your wrist pain. In the case of ripping the bandage packages open, scissors worked.
Pulling weeds? Pull
straight instead of twisting your wrist to avoid carpal tunnel pain.
Giving injections? That’s a tough one. The alternatives I can think of are to learn to use the other hand to provide the injection or to do a really good job on keeping the muscles in the chest and arm relaxed. Maybe the nurse was hiking her shoulder–that’ll cause pain in the carpal tunnel area.
You can relax the chest muscles and arm muscles with cold packs and self-massage or professional massage.
If it’s tender when you press on your chest muscles or arm muscles that means they are tight. That also means they need help to relax. Cold therapy, stretching and massage will help.
It’s also important to have a strong back to hold your shoulders back while you work. You can learn to do it really easily. This will prevent carpal tunnel pain from small daily movements.