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Carpal Tunnel Syndrome

© Chris E Barrett

All too frequently nowadays, we hear about Carpal Tunnel Syndrome. And all too frequently we all know someone who has had to resort to surgery to correct the problem. Sometimes the surgery is successful and the person is never troubled again by the numbness and pain. Unfortunately for others, the surgery is unsuccessful, and the pain recurs. In many cases, physiotherapy has proven helpful, and sometimes chiropractic medicine does the trick. In others, massage therapy is the ticket to freedom.

Massage treatment for carpal tunnel mostly involves work to the forearm muscles, especially to the flexors (the muscles that curl your fingers into fists and bend your hand towards your forearm). When these muscles are tight, feeling hard and resistant to pressure, they often close down on the nerves that supply your hand. A massage therapist skilled in this work, can loosen the muscles, increase the circulation through the area and free up the compressed nerves. Combined with exercises for you to do at home and at work, this can lead to a reduction, and in some cases a complete cessation of symptoms.

Because quite a few of the muscles involved attach at the other end to the lower part of the humerus (the bone of the upper arm), it is important to work through there, too. Working on the attachments of the muscle should stimulate a relaxation response in the belly of the muscle. I like to combine this work with a deep kneading of the muscle itself, feeling the fibres loosen and relax under my fingers. It's very satisfying to feel a muscle go from feeling like a bronze casting of a muscle to being soft and pliable, to see the client's reaction as the numbness starts to subside and the pain to recede.

In addition to the work described above, I use deep thumb stroking of the tendons where they cross the wrist from the hand down into the forearm, giving them a good stretch as I go. Part of my training involved learning how to mobilize the bones in the wrist and hand, and I use those techniques, too, on the theory that movement is life, and the more freely the bones and muscles can move, the happier and healthier a body is. When I feel that I'm starting to push the envelope to the point that the muscle is on the verge of being irritated, I switch to the muscles on the back of the forearm. It's important to keep a balance, I believe, and when one group of muscles is tight and pulling, it usually causes strain on the counter group (the antagonists). Therefore, no treatment is complete without addressing the arm, the body, the person as a whole and not a small dysfunctioning part.

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