Hand elbow and shoulder
Could anyone tell me if it's normal or possible to have the pain from CTS travel to the elbow and shoulder . I have had it for years now . I had a steroid injection first , then acupuncture and a splint .then finally four years ago surgery . I still get lots of numbness , ache to the back of the hand , and pain from the hand through the elbow to my shoulder . What should I do next ? . I wear a splint , but have to have it pulled so tight to stop the pain ! . Thanks .
Many thanks for that quick reply . I feel better informed now to go back to my GP to ask for more help . Is it okay to have a wrist support pulled very tight as this seems to help ,but my hand gets swollen ?
For CTS you should not need a very tight splint - the purpose of the splint is only to keep the wrist straight, not cut off the circulation to your fingers! It is possible however that other problems with the wrist might feel better if very firmly supported so I'm afraid the answer to that rather depends on what the current diagnosis is. JB
You can get pain radiating up the arm as far as the neck from CTS but if the source of your pain is really the carpal tunnel then it should go away along with successful treatment of the more typical hand symptoms. The way to start analysing your problem is to go back to the original symptom pattern and think about how certain it was that CTS was the right diagnosis - how typical were the symptoms, what tests provided support for the diagnosis and how bad was it. The next useful bit of information is how those symptoms responded to each form of treatment tried. Finally, if all of the above suggest that it was CTS to start off with and you still have a similar symptom pattern now then you should get your nerve conduction studies done (again) and compare them with the earlier studies (if there are any). JB