Can Carpel Tunnel Cause Hand Redness?
I started experiencing mild Carpel Tunnel symptoms about a year ago, and after several months my symptoms became less tolerable. Over the last 3-4 months I have stretched daily and did the whole cold/hot thing. Now I have minimal symptoms once again, but there is something that concerns me. At times and with no apparent schedule my left hand and wrist turns red and feels warm. I've been aware of Rheumatoid Arthritis for some time but doubted I had it because I have read that pain in the forearm is exclusively a carpel tunnel thing. I have also read that one can have both rheumatoid arthritis and carpel tunnel. The parts of my hand that turn red are my index and middle finger knuckles and usually it runs about half way up the right side of my index finger. Plus from my index finger knuckle down to the bottom of my thumb. One thing that makes my situation complicated is that my right hand is deformed and it does have some redness at times, but that's way too complicated to describe. I would post pictures, but I know a lot of forums have rules against posting links to photos and I'm not sure about this forum.
That's a rather diffuse redness rather than being localised to median nerve territory and the fingers look a little swollen and slightly shiny to me - I would be inclined to go and see a rheumatologist I think. Have you had any nerve conduction studies done to establish whether there is any concrete evidence of CTS? JB
I haven't had any testing done, but I suppose I will probably make an appointment soon. One question though, could that redness be caused by dry skin? It is winter time and I do wash my hands a little more than. In past winters I have had chapped hands but I'm not sure they were quite like this.
Also my hands were shiny because I had just out on lotion, after they were red though.
Definitely worth getting them tested and trying to establish whether there really is any clear support for the diagnosis of CTS. I'm a bit reluctant to blame that on Winter if you have not had it in every previous Winter. JB
That's quite an interesting post and you are welcome to send me a picture by email if you wish. The quick answer to the main question is 'maybe!'. Colour change is not a very commonly noted feature of CTS but the median nerve does contain autonomic nerve fibres which control the tone in smooth muscle cells in the walls of arteries. Biologically this is so that the nervous system has control over the blood flow to the extremities, enabling the body to shut down the circulation to the extremities when it needs to conserve heat or increase it to cool down. It is therefore physiologically possible that a disturbance of median nerve function could involve these fibres and alter the blood flow to the part of the hand that is innervated by the median nerve - the thumb, index, middle, and half the ring finger. The autonomic fibres also control sweating and a few people do notice changes in sweating in the median nerve territory in CTS. There have also been attempts to use thermography for diagnosis, looking for a measurable difference in temperature between the median and ulnar innervated territories of the hand.
Pain in the forearm is by no means exclusive to CTS and can be caused by numerous different pathologies. It's not even the commonest symptom of CTS. It is of course entirely possible to have more than one disease process and they can be inter-related, though whether rheumatoid arthritis actually predisoposes to CTS has recently been questioned. JB