Carpal Tunnel Syndrome – Symptoms and Treatment
Carpal tunnel syndrome is characterized by pain, tingling, numbness, weakness and other discomfort in your hand. It is caused by pressure on the median nerve in your wrist. This nerve, which controls movement and feeling in your thumb and fingers runs—along with several tendons—from your forearm to your hand through a tiny space called the carpal tunnel.
The syndrome results from swelling or anything else that makes the carpal tunnel smaller, thereby putting pressure on the median nerve. Contributing factors include wrist injury, arthritis, diabetes, hypothyroidism, repetitive hand movements, pregnancy, obesity, and more.
Traditionally, this condition has been treated with home remedies and massage therapy, including ice therapy, splinting, avoiding activities that cause pain, seeing a licensed massotherapist, and surgery in extreme cases.
However, a study in the Journal of Pain shows that cupping therapy may become a viable treatment for symptom reduction.
Cupping therapy, known also in some Arabic cultures as hijama therapy, is an alternative form of medicine dating back as far as 5,000 years. Often associated with Chinese treatments such as acupuncture and acupressure, cupping has been used throughout history by the Egyptians and even Hippocrates to treat many ailments.
The premise is to use cups—glass or silicone are mainly used now, although over the years people have used animal horns and bamboo—placed on the skin to create a vacuum drawing blood to specific parts of the body that need healing.
In the aforementioned study, researchers divided 52 patients suffering from carpal tunnel syndrome into two groups. The first group received cupping therapy. In this instance it involved glass jars placed over a section of punctured skin while pumps at the opposite ends of the jars removed air to create a vacuum. The idea being that suction draws blood to the surface improving circulation and alleviating pain. For the purpose of this study, the glasses were placed for 5-10 minutes over the shoulder muscle to affect the median nerve, which is what becomes aggravated in carpal tunnel syndrome.
The second group had heating pads administered to the same muscle for 15 minutes at a time.
After 7 days, the cupping therapy group reported a 60% decrease in their symptoms compared to 23% in the heating group.
If you’re experiencing carpal tunnel syndrome or other hand or wrist pain, contact Dr. Jorge Gonzalez at Orthopedic Specialty Institute, at 954-866-9699