In this video, I'm going to
show you how to relieve carpal tunnel syndrome in seconds.
Stay tuned. Hey, everyone. Dr. Rowe
coming to you from SpineCare in St. Joseph, Michigan. In this
video, we're going to go over a step-by-step guide that can
quickly relieve carpal tunnel syndrome even within seconds.
If you're unfamiliar with carpal tunnel syndrome, it's an
overuse injury of the wrist that causes irritation and
inflammation of soft tissues around the carpal tunnel
leading to compression of the median nerve. It's usually
brought about from repetitive flexion and extension of the
wrist. So, think activity like typing but when the median
nerve gets compressed, it can cause a lot of issues including
numbness, tingling, and pain into the palm, towards the
thumb, towards the index, and middle fingers. To make getting
relief easy, I'm going to break the video up into three
separate parts that are going to focus on lengthening and
more importantly, strengthening these soft tissues. While these
parts are different, they are meant to go together. So, if
you want the best results, use all three parts. With that
being said, let's get started. So, let's begin by releasing
soft tissue tightness and inflammation that maybe
building around the carpal tunnel. This is known as gua
sha or muscle scraping and it can give both quick and
long-lasting relief. We just need a couple things. The first
being a form of lubrication. Any massage oil or lotion
designed to be put on the skin will work. Next, we need a
large metal spoon. You want one with a little bit more
thickness. Start off by taking your lubrication and putting it
all over your hand wrist, and forearm on all sides. We're
going to target everything. Next, let's find the area of
the carpal tunnel. Make a fist and then bring your fist
towards you. You're going to notice a ridge forms on your
wrist. This is where the median nerve travels and the area of
the carpal tunnel is pretty much right in this ridge right
here at the junction of the wrist going into the hands. So,
we really want to target this area as much as possible. So,
let's grab our spoon and it doesn't matter what part you
use. You can use the round portion, the handle, the tip,
experiment with it. Anything works better for you, go with
it. I like to start on my palm right here on the inner part
right on the pinky side. You're going to take your spoon and
angle it roughly at 30 to 45 degrees and apply enough
pressure in where you're going to get a comfortable self
massage but not causing discomfort and just like the
name implies, we're going to scrape the soft tissue just
like this. Work top down and do this for about five to 10
repetitions over one spot and then just move over and repeat.
Doing this from the inner part all the way towards the thumb.
From there, work your way down into the wrist and repeat. When
you do this, you're probably going to notice that red
pockets start to form over the skin. I don't know if you can
see it over the video right here. That's a good thing.
That's blood flow coming into the area which helps promote
healing. You also may find that some spots just feel really
tight, gritty, almost kind of like sandpaper. That generally
a spot of an adhesion and you really want to target that as
much as possible. So, throw some more repetitions in until
you break that up but I do this whole process over the palm
right here, over the thumb, into the wrist, and then into
the forearm. Any spot needs more tension. At that point,
spend some more time and throw some more repetitions in.
Afterwards, you can then target different areas. You can do
this in the fingers, over the whole palm right here. You can
do this on the side of the wrist. You can do it on the
back side of the hand and I would recommend really focusing
on the forearms as much as possible you can take this one
to the next level too by putting the wrist through
different motions to engage muscles and really activate
some tendons that might be associated with carpal tunnel
syndrome so make a fist like this and then what you're going
to do is flex your wrist bringing it back like this
really causing that ridge start to work around the ridge as
much as possible and also into the palm can also take your
wrist into extension so bringing it back like this and
then repeating going on this side flipping it over towards
the side and then also on the forearm right here on the back
side of your hand. You can turn the wrist in and you can also
turn it out. So go through all of those motions. If you're
able to identify any spot that needs it just a little bit
more. At that point, throw more repetitions in. In this part,
we're going to focus on lengthening the median nerve
pathway and also the soft tissues around the carpal
tunnel This first one is known as a median nerve glide. It's a
three-part progression exercise that you can do throughout the
day anytime that you need quick relief. You just need a smooth
wall or a door for this one. It's pretty straightforward.
You're going to straighten your arm and press your fingers into
the door just like this. From there, you're going to slowly
lower your hand and press your palm towards the door. The more
that you press your palm towards the door, the more that
you're going to feel a deep stretch forming on the bottom
of the wrist right here, we're its way to the carpal tunnel.
Only go to the point where it's a comfortable deep stretch.
Don't go to the point where it's going to cause more
discomfort. Hold this one for two to 3 seconds. You're going
to release it and then you're going to repeat this 115 times.
With each repetition, challenge yourself to press your palm
closer towards the door. Once you're able to do this one for
15 repetitions where your hand is flush against the door and
it's not causing any more discomfort then progress on to
the second step to get a more intense glide. So, with this
one, imagine that our fingers are pointing up towards 12
o'clock. What we want to do is rotate our fingers downward so
they're pointing at six o'clock and then we're going to repeat
this. This is a much deeper stretch. I pretty much feel it
all across my wrist right here. Again, a two to three-second
hold, you're going to relax and then repeat this 115 times. If
you have no issues with that, we can then progress into the
third step. So, this one right here we're going to go back to
our six o'clock spot but now we're going to move our head to
really intensify that glide so you're going to take your head
and lean it towards the door taking your ear towards your
shoulder and then you're going to hold this for about two to
three seconds you're going to release it and then you're
going to go towards the opposite way so taking your
head away from the door again 2-3 second hold and then relax
you want to do this one again for 15 repetitions and with
each repetition try to build into it just little bit more.
So, after we're done with our median nerve glide, we're then
going to combine it with a tendon glide to work more
muscles and tendons associated with carpal tunnel syndrome.
So, take the backside of your hand and put it flat against a
table or a flat surface. We're going to take the tips of our
fingers minus our thumb right here and just curl and hook
them forward to the top part of the palm. You want to hold this
position right here for roughly two to three seconds. You're
then going to relax and then we going to do is take your
fingers all the way down towards the wrist as much as
you can. You should really start to feel a lot start to
fire around the wrist and also into the hand and fingers. Two
to three second hold, you're going to release. The last
movement that we're going to do is then hook forward and then
take our thumb and really kind of squeeze into it and
make a nice fist. Two to three second hold and then you're
going to relax but you're going to repeat this process nice and
slowly for about fifteen complete repetitions and with
each repetition, try to build into it just a little bit more.
If you're looking to get long-lasting relief, possibly
even prevent carpal tunnel syndrome, your main focus needs
to be on strengthening the muscles and the tendons
associated with it. Here's a really easy daily exercise that
requires just a simple weight like a water bottle. So, what
I'm going to do is position my arm at the edge of a flat
surface where my palm is going to be facing down. Let's grab
on to a water bottle. If you want to make this one
challenging, you can use something like a dumbbell but
the movement pretty easy. You want to position your wrist and
hand off that edge. That way, our wrist is going to do all of
the movement. Take your other hand and clamp down on your
forearm to make sure that it's a stable anchor point but just
lift the weight upward as much as you can. This is known as
wrist extension. The more that you go up, the more that you're
going to feel a lot of muscles in the forearm towards the
wrist start to fire. I like to hold this one for about 3
seconds. Release it, and then repeat this 110 to 15 times.
From there we're going to switch positions of our hands
so the palm is going to be facing upward towards the
ceiling and then we're going to repeat lifting that weight
upward. This is known as wrist flexion. It'll hit the muscles
just a little bit differently. Again 10 to 15 repetitions.
Each repetition a 3 second hold. Next we're going to focus
on what is known as ulnar and radial deviation. Kind of an
inward and then outward motion of the wrist. I like to start
with my thumb upward towards the ceiling. Kinda like a
hitchhiker sign. Movement pretty easy. Again, we're just
going to lift that weight up as much as we can until we can't
go any further. Hold that for about 3 seconds but with this
one now, we're going to fight that weight going down. So,
slowly take the weight downward like this and you're going to
notice again hits the muscles just a little bit differently.
So, when you can't go any further, you're going to hold
this one for 3 seconds, come back up, and then just repeat
this 110 to 15 times in bow directions. The last movements
that we're going to focus on are known as supination and
pronation. It's kind of like a rotational movement of the hand
and the wrist. So we're going to focus on turning our thumb
downward like this. Really trying to turn our hand inward
as much as we can until we feel those muscles fire and then
we're going to do the opposite. Turning our thumb outward like
this so our palm is really facing upward towards the
ceiling. So with the weight, we're just going to mimic that
movement. For this one, I like to lift my arm off of the table
and have elbow straight and then do that movement. So,
going down as much as I can until I really feel those
muscles fire. Three-second hold, you're going to come back
up and then, you're just going to turn outward like this
repeating 10 to 15 times in both directions and again, if
you want to take this one to the next level, use a heavier
weight like a dumbbell. If the exercises help, please support
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please leave them below. I'll get back to you as soon as I
can. Thanks for watching.
