Carpal RX
I was given a nerve conduction test and was diagnosed with CTS a couple of years ago, my symptoms seem to come and go but recently have gotten worse so I am now considering surgery. In an attempt to avoid surgery, I have been researching other possible treatments. The two most promising seem to be the Carpal RX and the Carpal Tunnel Solution. Has anyone had experience with either of these, good or bad? Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Wanda
It was a long time ago. I haven't heard much about this thing in the last few years so I suspect it hasn't taken the world of carpal tunnel syndrome treatment by storm. JB
I would say the Carpalrx and Ctrac (latest study linked below) are the two most promising manual treatments. Carpalrx is working for me and the Ctrac is out for delivery today. Will report back on both (hopefully !) shortly.
http://www.ijaresm.com/comparative-effect-of-c-trac-machine-and-conventi...
That is a remakably poor quality study. Small, no satisfactory inclusion/exclusion or diagnostic criteria, no description of randomisation, no blinding, the wrong outcome measure, very short term follow-up (3 weeks? - not clearly stated in the paper) - selective outcome reporting and incorrect statistics. This is just about every methodological error you can make in a scientific study I'm afraid and those results are meaningless I'm afraid. JB
I agree. There is no obvious reason for a difference between the two outcome measures. Besides that a product that requires multiple squeezing and twisting of small knobs is poorly designed for someone with arthritic hands.
There are no good quality scientific studies of these commercial devices, and others like them. I am afraid the only things that have clearly been shown to help are neutral angle wrist splints, steroids and surgery. Even many of the things that appear in the standard textbooks are lacking in good supporting evidence. The only thing that can be said for certain about these devices is that they will lighten your wallet and I generally recommend that such 'treatments' should only be tried either as part of a properly randomised controlled clinical trial, or else on a 'no cure no payment' basis. I've deleted the duplicate posting. JB