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How not to Get Carpal Tunnel Syndrome

© Traute Klein, biogardener

Carpal tunnel syndrome can be prevented with proper keyboard and mouse habits and it can be alleviated and even cured with natural remedies.

Observations

Don't you love to watch people who seem to use their hands with the greatest of ease? We call them dexterous. No carpal tunnel injury for them! And then there are the people who don't know how to relax. We see them at cash registers in every supermarket and at computers in every government office. Their orthopedic braces and mechanical devices are supposed to alleviate the pain. They don't seem to be doing the trick. Maybe we should teach these sufferers how to become dexterous, i.e. how to relax. Just today, I heard about an experiment to determine what would help carpal tunnel sufferers more, a tensor bandage or yoga. The yoga won. Relaxation seems to be the secret.

Background

Let me first tell you that, as a result of undiagnosed and untreated injuries, I have permanent damage to my right wrist and problems from my fingertips to the neck. For five years, I was unable to play the piano because of numbness and constant severe pain. Nevertheless, I can work at the computer, because wrist-friendly technique comes naturally to a pianist. Music has a double benefit. It relaxes and it teaches proper keyboard technique. In playing a keyboard instrument, the action lies in the fingers, not in the wrists. Wrist motion is only vertical, never horizontal. The moral of the story? If you want to learn how to relax at the computer keyboard, take piano lessons.

Prevention

The worst abuse of the wrist comes from improper use of the mouse. Here is my how-to of keyboard and mouse-control:
1. Give your wrist a holiday and let the fingers do the work of hitting the keys. Remember those piano exercises!
2. Move the whole arm sideways from the shoulder, not from the wrist.
3. If your arm is tired, rest it on the desk in front of the keyboard. I do it all the time, because my injured shoulder does not support the weight of my arm. In that case, you move the wrist from the elbow.
4. ***Hold the mouse with the thumb and pinky. It takes the strain off the wrist.
5. Find a mouse on which you can place your hand in its natural resting position, with your thumb and pinky resting on the pad on either side of the mouse and the other three fingers lying on the buttons.
6. Even if the mouse has only two buttons, the three middle fingers should rest on top of the mouse.

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