Is It Carpal Tunnel Syndrome OR Tendonitis?

hey everybody welcome this is dr. Levi I want to answer a question that we've got multiple times now on Facebook on YouTube my email and that is dr. Levi what is the difference between carpal tunnel syndrome and tendonitis of the wrist so let's go over a few things so any itis means there's inflammation so let's go over the big difference here carpal tunnel means that the median nerve the nerve that runs right underneath your your transverse carpal ligament deep in your wrist there are multiple layers of your hand so there's the skin as if you go down further there's something called the palmar aponeurosis then underneath that you have the transverse carpal ligament underneath that you have the median nerve so the median nerve is inflamed or it's impinged upon if you have carpal tunnel why people develop carpal tunnel we don't know exactly however there's an association that is due to repetitive stress injury repetitive motion injury that people who do a lot of the same things develop this like like stenographers Court Reporters but at the same time there's a lot of conflicting data from other research programs that state that repetitive stress injury does not cause carpal tunnel so we really add a medical concern for what is the real cause of carpal tunnel syndrome we often see it more common in individuals who have diabetes we also can see someone with carpal tunnel if they have if they're pregnant they can develop what's called a gestational carpal tunnel due to fluid retention often so again carpal tunnel means that the median nerve in the carpal canal is inflamed it's not getting proper nutrition not getting enough blood supply that is being impinged upon and it could be impinge upon by a ganglion cyst our tumor there are from previous trauma in the wrist where the bones are causing impingement it could be from as I said earlier from unknown reasons we don't know why some people get it all right now I've seen it pretty often in the gaming community actually so I've talked about that before the goal here is remind you that there are multiple modalities to treat it before we talk about treatment I want to tell you about the symptom of carpal tunnel the symptoms are the following numbness and tingling in your thumb index finger ring finger and this side of your of your ring finger again thumb index finger middle finger and this half of your ring finger this is called the ulnar aspect this is the assuming the radial aspect of your of your ring finger so again thumb index finger middle finger then half of your ring finger here now you have numbness tingling decreased grip strength pain that wakes you up at night you can often have a feeling of electricity that goes in your fingers when you try to lift to pull things increased tiredness and fatigue of your hand difficulty driving for long periods of time difficulty writing or typing we have people often tell more doctor you'll have to shake out my hands at night it wakes me up so those are the predominant symptoms of carpal tunnel now you can also have swelling there now how do we treat it well there are multiple modalities to treat carpal tunnel syndrome the most common of course are rest changing what you do so if you drive a lot and have more problems after you drive well drive less the other things that we do of course are splinting especially at night to split your wrist so that you don't do this many of us when we sleep we go into a fetal position and we do this with our wrists and hands you know we sleep like this well look if you wear a velar wristlet that has a metal stay in it it will prevent you from doing this that night so to keep your hand was called a position of function and neutrality just like that so splinting resting other things would be anti-inflammatory medication for example ibuprofen on Naprosyn the next thing of course would be physical therapy and then if that's not effective acupuncture and acupressure and if that's not effective then we can think about doing an injection of a steroid such as catalog or depo medrol some people still use cortisone I'm not a big fan of it but you can use a steroid and then the last thing if all of those modalities do not work if you fail all noninvasive even though as the injection is is invasive it's not surgery if all of those things fail then the next thing we do of course we recommend surgery but even myself as a surgeon I always prefer to go the holistic path meaning that I try to really marry eastern and western medicine together to minimize the the effects that surgery can have because I'll forget surgery like taking a medication can only do one of three things make you better make you worse or no change so you always want to avoid surgery if you can and guess what that's coming from me a surgeon I love operating I I love I love being in the or but I only go there when everything else has failed I hope you remember that that's so very very important now let's talk about the other issue here and that is what is tendonitis of the wrist so tendinitis extensor tendon is specifically of the wrist is the back of the wrist these are your extensors okay so these are the extensors of your wrist these are the flexor tendons that come through here allowing you to flex your fingers allowing you to flex your fingers these are the extensor tendons back here so if you have extensor tendon itis of your wrist you may have pain and swelling on the dorsum of your wrist in your hand difficulty lifting pushing pulling items difficulty with driving with typing with texting we're working out all of those things are affected dramatically now who develops it well you can develop it from working out from driving from typing texting a lot why people develop we don't know I've never had that and so I can't tell you firsthand but I've had a lot of friends I've taken care of hundreds if not thousands now patients who've had tendinitis of the wrist a lot of athletes develop it because of their sports and because of overuse syndrome and many development because they're not doing the strengthen and stretching the exercise that they should do for their extensors and their flexors that's why I'm doing the videos by the grace of goodness I'm doing them to really help you remind you that stretching and exercises are important to avoid injury we have to do it now how do we treat tendonitis of the wrist well rest splinting physical therapy anti-inflammatory medication acupuncture acupressure and sometimes we'll do an injection to the extensor mechanism to get the inflammation down there is no specific surgery for that sometimes someone can develop what we call very inflamed Tino synovium sino synovium is a lining over the the tendons now when that becomes very inflamed there are times we actually have to take it out do what's called the Latino Center vechta me we have to take out that lining because it's so thickened it's so inflamed and it causes such discomfort for the patients so that's it there's carpal tunnel syndrome and there's extensor tendon eyes of the risk the bottom line is do the exercises that we've talked about that I've shown you do the stretches that I've shown you I mean YouTube channel that we're developing has everything my team is really about serving you you know the doctor Levi's team is about empowering you educating you and reminding you that you want to do everything you can to avoid injury so you can have a pro loan career as an athlete or as a as a a weekend warrior whatever you're doing I want you to be safe I want to be effective I'm going to do what we can so you can avoid injury all right this is dr. Levi I appreciate your attention and thanks for your part of the dr. Levi community I'm really grateful and gamer's I want you to know that I stand by you as professional athletes and I know and believe that the world will continue to recognize you and I hope my exercises help you this is dr. Levi please subscribe to my youtube channel

Channel: Dr Levi Harrison

Views: 651,269

Keywords: Art of Fitness, Dr. Levi Harrison, hand, wrist, pain, gamers, gaming, gaming hand pain, carpal tunnel, carpal, tunnel, tendonitis, tendon pain, wrist pain, league of legends, team NRG, Team liquid, carpal tunnel vs tendonitis, tendinitis, forearm pain, exercises for carpal, exercises for tendonitis, exercises after computer, gaming fintess

Id: YCc_eIrjeFk

Length: 8min 29sec (509 seconds)

Published: Tue Feb 16 2016