"Carpal Tunnel Syndrome"

1. An estimated 500,000 surgeries for "Carpal Tunnel Syndrome" are performed every year. Surgeon's costs for the procedure run to $10,000. This means that 5 billion dollars are paid annually by individuals to have the carpal ligaments on the palm of their hand severed with a sharp scalpel. These poor souls will never again have a normal hand because (stay with me) there is a reason we have a carpal ligament! (Oh, those 5 billions do not include re-dos, rehab and other expenses. These can jump the cost for surgery up to $30,000.)

2.The tragedy is that with rare exceptions these surgeries can be avoided. Here's why: doctors (yes, those with the white coats) have misguided concepts regarding painful hands. They are obsessed with diagnostic procedures focussed on the wrist, to demonstrate "carpal tunnel syndrome" (which is located on the palm of the hand). Doctors tap and bend the wrist. If the person says "ouch" off they go to the surgical unit.

Doctors do have another "diagnostic tool" up their sleeves: they poke electrical needles (usually a very painful procedure) into the patient's forearm to test the electrical speed that travels along the nerve. The problem with this procedure is that volunteers who demonstrate a positive result frequently do not have hand pain, while others who demonstrate a negative result have severe hand pain. If the results of a patient destined to have carpal tunnel surgery are negative, doctors disregard it, and if positive, it corroborates all that wrist tapping and bending.

3. Why doctors have it all wrong. Instead of tapping and bending all those wrists, if doctors would explore, using their fingers, the hands of patients experiencing pain and a variety of symptoms in their thumb and fingers--doctors would find that the tissues (skin, fascia and the carpal ligament) overlying the carpal tunnel are contracted, thickened and adherent to each other. These are the tissues that press down on the Median nerve causing all the symptoms.

And, if doctors would continue to gently explore those tissues they would find that they become softened, healthy and normal once again. They would loosen their grip on the underlying nerve--pain and other symptoms would go away and stay away. Those 500,000 surgeries each year would be a thing of the past. However, I doubt that hand surgeons will jump at the opportunity of putting themselves out of business and losing those billions of dollars they are currently raking in.

4. Why do the tissues overlying the carpal tunnel become contracted, thickened and adherent to each other? Doctors tell us that repetitive movement of our wrists when we are using computers and other devices, are the source of carpal tunnel syndrome. However, if you look down at your hands when you are typing away at your keyboard, you will see that your wrists are not moving! It is your fingers that move repetitively. Indeed, it isn't possible to move your wrists at the same time that you type. (Try it).

Your fingers move because the muscles that are connected to them are constantly contracting. These are the source of so-called carpal tunnel syndrome--the muscles that are connected to your fingers. We don't have the space here to go into detail, but the problems at your carpal tunnel are just part of a global problem involving your forearm, arm and shoulder.

5. I have been a Physical Therapist since 1957. Actually treatment for so-called "carpal tunnel syndrome" is straight-forward and highly successful. Since people in pain cannot count on their doctors to treat them in a humane and non-mutilating manner, they must learn to treat themselves until the time comes when there are large numbers of practitioners who will gently explore and normalize their tissues. This is the reason my book was written.