Health care professionals are quick to let you know that surgery is the only effective remedy for carpal tunnel syndrome. Typically the symptoms of a disease are treated and not the source of the problem.

The cause of carpal Tunnel syndrome (CTS) is due to muscle imbalance in your forearm. Not all health care professionals recognize this.

When you move your wrist and fingers the muscles in your forearm are used to move them. If you open your hand or close your hand you are using muscles in your forearm.

Try grasping your forearm with one hand and then open and closed the hand whose forearm you have grasped and feel the muscles tightening and relaxing.

Just about all the muscles used in typing, playing the piano, moving a computer mouse or even lifting weights with a closed fist are forearm muscles.

As an aid to understanding this better, the muscles that close the fingers are called flexor muscles. They are on the front side of the forearm. On the backside of the arm are the extensor muscles that pull the fingers back. Work activities and leisure activities work the flexor muscles more that the extensors. The extensor muscles become weak because of limited use and the flexor muscles get shorter and thicker. The tendons that attach the flexor muscles to the bone are also shorter and thicker.

Long and skinny tendons run from the forearm through the carpal tunnel to the fingers. There are nine flexor tendons in the tunnel.

The tunnel size is decreased as the flexor tendons pull the hand down or forward. The shorter and thicker flexor tendons take up more space in the tunnel causing irritation and inflammation.

As this irritation increases the median nerve (also in the tunnel) gets pinched and becomes inflamed causing the pain. Once nerves are damaged or inflamed they heal very slowly.

Using a wrist splint while sleeping helps keep the carpal tunnel open and reduces further irritation and inflammation. Using a splint will not cure the problem as a splint does not address the muscle imbalance. You may sleep better using a splint ,but, no permanent healing is taking place.

To obtain relief muscle balance needs to be restored. One technique that is used a lot to restore muscle balance is stretching. This does not work every time. Sometimes muscles have adhesion where muscle cell sick together. Stretching when this happens tends to stretch the muscles that are not stuck together. While stretching may work eventually, persistence is required. People tend to quit if quick results are not obtained.

A self administered targeted massaging technique has been found to restore balance to the muscles and diminish and eliminate the pain associated with carpal tunnel syndrome.

This technique produces results in most cases. If some of the pain and discomfort is due to a torn tendon stretching could make matters worse.

Seldom will any one experience quick relief using any technique. The pain, tingling and numbness probably took some to develop. Be patient, it may take a little time to heal.

Author Bio: For more information on the self administered massaging technique visit pain relief

Category: Medicines and Remedies
Keywords: carpal tunnel syndrome,carpal tunnel, flexor muscles