Dr. Ross Carter: Hi! I'm Doctor Ross Carter. I'm a Board Certified Chiropractor in the State of Georgia and I've been practicing here since 1996. Hi! Today I'm going to be talking to you about Carpal Tunnel Syndrome, the dreaded wrist problem. I hear that all the time. So what is Carpal Tunnel Syndrome? Let's talk about it.
Carpal Tunnel Syndrome is misdiagnosed a lot because a lot of people just diagnose themselves with the condition when they have any type of numbness in the hands. They suddenly think, if I have numbness in the hands I have Carpal Tunnel Syndrome, but let's actually discuss what Carpal Tunnel Syndrome is.
There is a group of nerves that actually exit from the neck and upper back that's called your brachial plexus. Now, basically it's a group of five nerves that go down into the shoulders and arms and they travel down into the wrist and then in the fingers and the hands. Alright, so there are five different nerves. Now two of them stay up in this area, three of them travel down into the arms and fingers and they control all of these actions.
Now you have what's called the median nerve, you have the ulnar nerve and you have the radial nerve. Now why is that important? Well, let me explain to you why. Now there is only one nerve that travels through the carpal tunnel. A carpal tunnel basically is this tunnel right here. It's a area between where the carpals are or the wrist bones are that a nerve travels and goes to the hand. Now here is the problem. There is only one nerve that actually does that and it is the median nerve.
Now the median nerve only controls these three fingers, and a little bit of the inside of this finger. So it basically makes these areas numb or tingly and that's it. Now if your pinky or this finger starts to go numb or tingly, then that's not the same nerve, that is the ulnar nerve. The radial nerve controls mainly the back part of the hand. So if your entire hand is falling asleep that might not be Carpal Tunnel, typically it's not. If it's only right here then that might be Carpal Tunnel. But so you got to understand the thing about carpal tunnel is this.
The nerve that's compressed, the median nerve for example, can actually be compressed typically in different areas, most of the time this is not the area, most of the time it's in the neck, and why would it be there? Well, in the neck it's the only place where the nerves actually pass through movable bone which is in the neck and upper back. So what happens is the nerve passes through these bones where this hole is, and if these bones have shifted out of their alignment they can put pressure on these nerves up here and cause the symptoms to appear down here.
So what we would like to find out is if it's compressed in the neck, it can get irritated or compressed in the shoulder, it can actually be damaged or irritated in the elbow or it can actually be compressed here in the carpal tunnel as well. So the median nerve which is carpal tunnel nerve can be compressed in a multitude of different areas. So just if you have numbness or tingling in your hands does not necessarily be that you have Carpal Tunnel Syndrome, only a trained doctor or a chiropractor can help find out if this is actually what's going on with you.
Now for the nerve damage or nerve irritation what we do is chiropractically we look at restoring the normal nerve flow or basically taking the pressure off any nerves that we find that is causing some health problems and we do a general procedure called an adjustment, which is simply a way to shift those bones into a better position thereby taking the pressure off the nerves.
I hope the information that I presented today was helpful. If you or someone you know is experiencing headaches, neck pain, back pain, Sciatica, numbness or tingling down the arms or the legs, even fibromyalgia or weight trouble, I would like to help. All you have to do is just give my office a call at the number you see below or you can actually email us or check out my website as you can see on the information below.
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