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 the channel by giving this
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any comments or questions, please leave them below. I'll
get back to you as soon as I can. Thanks for watching.