Are portions of your hand going numb? Do you feel hand numbness in certain fingers? Do your fingers tingle or do you get sharp shooting pains in to your hands?
Many people come to my office telling me that they have carpal tunnel. In 90% of those cases, it is not the correct diagnosis.
What is carpal tunnel? You have an indentation within the many bones of your wrist that the muscles that control the flexion of your fingers and your median nerve pass through. It supplies the palm of your hand and first three fingers. When you are having carpal tunnel symptoms you are getting compression of the median nerve AT your carpal tunnel.
Many times, even though you have numb fingers, the compression is happening somewhere else. Often, I find the patient’s forearm to be full of trigger points (tiny painful adhesions between the muscles) that are causing hand numbness. You can also have hand numbness that is caused by problems with your neck. If the small holes between the bones of your spine where your nerves exit are causing compression or pressure to build up around your nerves, whatever they supply is not going to get the message.
With any of these issues, your first stop should be a chiropractor. We are trained to diagnose and treat these problems as well as many others. If you give chiropractic care a fair chance to work and listen to your doctors recommendations after a couple weeks your symptoms will probably improve. If not, the chiropractor can refer you on for advanced imaging or diagnostics, physical therapy or even a neurologist consult.
It's usually a good idea to start with the least invasive approach first as you can always move up to more invasive measures if that doesn't help. We have worked with many numb hands over the years to get them feeling again. If you would like to learn more about our office you can here or book online.