Massage for Carpal Tunnel Syndrome
Carpal Tunnel Syndrome occurs from repetitive stress that causes pain due to increased inflammation in the area. The pain is due to
nerve ischemia or a temporary lack of oxygen to the nerve. Because doctors will only do carpal tunnel surgery as a last resort, massage is a holistic therapy that you should definitely try in your course of treatment.
Massage can address extremely tight forearm muscles that have lost range of motion and strength. It can also increase the amount of oxygen that can get to the median nerve (the nerve getting restricted in CTS).
Some other carpal tunnel treatments are wrist splints and steroid injections both of which are typically temporary fixes.
Carpal tunnel is notoriously known for mimicking other neck or shoulder issues. So a steroid injection into the wrist won’t help if the problem is really coming from a muscle in your neck being tight. It is absolutely vital that you try massage for carpal tunnel before having the carpal tunnel release surgery.
An upper body massage for 60 minutes once a week is the best recommendation. But if you are not going to do any at home self care an hour massage twice a week would be best.
