Carpial Tunnel Syndrome CTS
After reading that a lot of you guys seem to be suffering from various forms of hand, wrist and aching forearms I was curious at what might be causing this so I done a little research and found the following out.
What is Carpal Tunnel Syndrome (CTS)?
CTS is a painful repetitive motion disorder and is much in the same bracket as RSI that secretaries taxi drivers and typists suffer from.
It directly affects the median nerve. This nerve travels from your forearm into your hand through a tunnel in the wrist. The tunnel is made up of 8 carpial bones of the wrist on 3 sides and the strong transverse carpal ligament in situated on the top. This tunnel is also home to the flexor tendons that move the fingers. A sheath called Synovium covers each flexor tendon. With repetitive flexing and extension of the wrist the sheaths can become inflamed and thick and creates excessive pressure on the tunnel. As the pressure continues to build it has no where to be dispersed and then causes pressure on the median nerve which produces the symptoms of CTS
What are the symptoms?
The symptoms vary greatly for an individual but there are some common symptoms.
Tingling or numbness in the index finger or the middle finger.
Pain in the forearm or even in the shoulder.
Thumb index finger or middle finger may feel swollen/useless.
Loss of strength and the muscle at the bottom of the thumb begins to atrophy.
The causes of CTS
Any form of repetitive or forceful movement can cause the sheaths in the forearms to become swollen.
Repetitive and forceful grasping with hands.
Repetitive bending of the wrists
Broken or dislocated bones in the wrist that produces swelling
Arthritis
Thyroid gland imbalances
Diabetes
Menopause
Pregnancy
In BB CTS is very common and can be caused by improper weight training techniques.
Grasping a barbell or DB in the fingers excessive or forceful pulling of the bar.
Performing wrist curls to often
Using weights that are too heavy to keep under control
Hormonal changes/imbalances from AAS use. Excessive use/abuse of Human Growth Hormone (HGH) has been recorded at severely increasing this disorder
Treatment and do you have it?
It is possible that you can have all the symptoms without actually having CTS but that the median is not being compressed.
Dr G.Hacker an MD and Orthopaedic surgeon says
“The only way to truly diagnose CTS is through the administration of an electrical nerve conduction velocity test, which measures the speed at which a nerve conducts an electrical impulse. When the nerve is compressed as it is in CTS the velocity of conduction is slowed greatly”
Mild cases are usually treated with a wrist splint, which is worn at night to prevent the wrist from bending and allows the tunnel to remain open relieving pressure and inflammation.
In more severe cases a cortisone injection into the carpial tunnel can be effective. If both of these fail two types of surgery can be undertaken open and endoscopy
Prevention
The bottom line appears to be that stretching the wrist and hand can reduce the tension on the hand and wrist, but if you do experience the above problems most of the time you should see a Doctor.
Exercises
1 Wrist Extensor stretch
Hold your elbow straight, grasp your fingers and hand and gently bend your hand downwards to your feet until you feel a stretch on the top of your hand, wrist and forearm. This should also be performed pulling you hand upwards
2 Paper crumbling
With your wrist resting on a table gently crumble a piece of paper in your hand. This improves grip.
Hope it helps a little bit and explains why you seem to get it with AAS use and the extra weight you lift with the stregth increases achieved.
Billy
Re: Carpial Tunnel Syndrome CTS
The causes of CTS
Any form of repetitive or forceful movement can cause the sheaths in the forearms to become swollen.
Repetitive and forceful grasping with hands.
Repetitive bending of the wrists
So Billy...what you're telling me is we can get CTS from........naw, too easy. Since we now have well respected female members I won't go any further....but you guys do see where I was going with that...don't you :)
Pete
I Second the Motion . . .
Great post, Billy - very informative!
One thing I would caution everyone about is that if you get a pain in the wrist (or any other joint), you should not automatically assume that it's Carpal Tunnel Syndrome. CTS is only one of the common joint problems that BB's experience; the other common ones are tendonitis (which is different from CTS) and tenosynovitis (ditto).
I learned my lesson a couple of years ago when I got a major pain in the wrists from not keeping tight form when I was lifting. The diagnosis was "DeQuervain's Tenosinovitis," which, instead of affecting the tendon directly, affects the tendon sheath. DeQuervain's is diagnosed by way of the Finklestein Test (I kid you not) - you make a fist around your thumb (that is, your thumb is bent under your couple of fingers), then bend outward at the wrist (in the direction of your little finger, or away from the body). If it hurts like all hell, you've got DeQuervain's. The treatment is simple - a steroid shot to the wrist (sorry, guys, it was corticosteroid, not anabolic steroid).
Regardless of diagnosis, however, your body can only handle a few cortisone shots to any one area - most physicians will max them out at three shots. After that, it's surgery - a very motivating factor in terms of keeping proper form up when you're lifting.
That's why, these days, I tend to do any work with my wrists (including biceps) with circuit equipment (preferably Nautilus or Icarian) rather than dumb bells or bars - the circuit forces me to keep correct position better than I would with the free weights. (Yeah, so I'm not a purist anymore, but at least I haven't needed any more of those freakin' shots.)
