For the most part, doctors believe that the Causes of Carpal Tunnel Syndrome are usually related to an ‘impingement’ of the median nerve that runs down the wrist. According to doctors, strain and repetitive motion causes inflammation of the connective tissue that surrounds this nerve running through your wrist into your hand; surgery is often indicated as a treatment to ‘release’ the impingement on this nerve. But Carpal Tunnel Syndrome is simply a collection of symptoms and not a disease itself. As with many ‘Syndromes’, there can be different causes of carpal tunnel syndrome and ‘nerve impingement’ is only ONE of the causes of carpal tunnel syndrome, making Conservative Non Surgical Treatment for Carpal Tunnel Syndrome imperative before surgery is attempted.

But other, more unlikely sounding Causes of Carpal syndrome are Thyroid Gland Problems. This may sound a bit crazy, but an under active thyroid gland, termed hypothyroid, can be one of the causes of of ‘Carpal Tunnel Syndrome’. This was actually discovered by accident when patients with hypothyroidism suddenly found their carpal tunnel syndrome symptoms disappearing. While it SOUNDS easy to have a doctor simply check a person’s thyroid levels before they consider surgery for carpal tunnel syndrome, it’s not always that simple.

“Especially in the treatment of entrapment neuropathy
in hypothyroidism, the chance of medical treatment must
be given to patients before considering surgical treatment.”

‘Hormone replacement therapy in hypothyroidism
and nerve conduction study’

Unfortunately, hypothyroid isn’t necessarily easy to diagnose. Even though the blood tests are readily available, doctors generally only look at ONE of the many different thyroid tests that are available. If this Thyroid Stimulating Hormone (TSH) is normal, then the doctor will determine that hypothyroidism is not present and will not check the many other thyroid hormones and antibodies that can be tested. But in the case of some study participants who had carpal tunnel syndrome, the majority who benefited from hypothyroid treatment actually had completely normal TSH levels. But these lucky carpal tunnel sufferers had ALL their levels analyzed and were diagnosed with ‘Subclinical Hypothyroid’, qualified for the more conservative medical treatment that eliminated their ‘Carpal Tunnel Syndrome’ and avoided unnecessary surgery.

Not only is Underactive thyroid one of the causes of Carpal Tunnel Syndrome, but Overactive thyroid can cause these Same symptoms. And just like with hypothyroid, treatment for hyperthyroid also prevented what would have been surgical cases. In the article ‘Carpal tunnel syndrome and hyperthyroidism. A prospective study’ the authors state, “CTS can be considered another peripheral neurological manifestation associated with hyperthyroidism.” Yet instead of routinely screening patients for subtle health problems before surgery, doctors rarely check for these problems. In fact, one study that reviewed all of the literature available on metabolic causes of carpal tunnel syndrome concluded that “there is insufficient evidence for routine laboratory screening” in patients with carpal tunnel syndrome.

Certainly, for those who end up having an unnecessary and unsuccessful surgery, there is not ‘insufficient evidence’. But until routine screenings with the simple and readily available blood tests are being done, it will be impossible to know how many people receive unnecessary carpal tunnel surgery every year. Given that there is always a percentage of people who don’t improve with carpal tunnel surgery, it’s evident that some of these surgical ‘Non Responders’ might have have something else as the causes of their carpal tunnel syndrome.

If you are EVER considering surgery for Carpal Tunnel Syndrome, INSIST upon your doctor checking ALL of your thyroid hormones with a Full Thyroid Panel that includes a TSH, T4, Free T4, Free T3 Your doctor will likely not agree to this and state that it is “Not Indicated”, but when you are contemplating surgery, ruling out all possible causes of Carpal Tunnel Syndrome is VERY MUCH indicated if you are the one going under the knife!! You can also get a full Thyroid Panel Blood Test sent to you and you can have it done without your doctor’s order! How cool is that!

But if you are told that you need to have carpal tunnel surgery and you DON’T have thyroid problems, be sure to check out The Tendonitis Expert and have him help you with your pain first.

Kerri Knox, RN- The Immune Health Queen
Functional Medicine Practitioner
Easy Immune Health.com

Joshua Tucker, The Tendonitis Expert

In ‘Got Inflammation…Part 1′ we learned that Inflammation is a Process that kicks in -any- time the body feels pain.

And we learned that pain causes the body to tighten muscles and release a chemical that enhances your sensitivity to pain…which makes you feel more pain which makes the body increase the Process of Inflammation.

Today we are going to talk about how that works in a situation like Tendonitis and Repetitive Strain Injury.

Next time in ‘Got Inflammation…Part 3′ we’ll discuss what this means when you have a larger and even systemic inflammatory state which can be caused by such issues as Gluten Intolerance, H Pylori overgrowth, and similar issues.

So let’s say you spend a lot of time at a computer keyboard.  And/or you knit, crochet, or do some other hand intensive motion repeatedly day after day.

Over time, the muscles get tighter, and shorter.

When muscles are tight, they are like a half squeezed sponge.  They have a hard time getting waste product and old fluid out, and a hard time getting new blood and new nutrition in. Then you feel some ache, but it goes away. Then it returns, and stays a while longer, but goes away.

As your muscles get tighter and tighter, and you continue to perform repetitive motions, you start to get tiny wear and tear injury to the tissue of the tendon and other connective tissue. This can turn into true tendonitis, as scar tissue begins to form, fibers continuously laying down on top of each other. Structurally, scar tissue is not as strong as the original tissue…..so fibers rip and tear off easily…..which tells the body there is an injury and something  needs to be done about it.

Something like……INFLAMMATION!

You ache, and then hurt.  It still comes in waves, but starts to return faster and hurt more.

You body compensates for this as long as it can.  You generally don’t feel the tightness or notice the inflammation and its effects until the dynamic is firmly entrenched.
This continues until you really start to worry about it.  Maybe even do something about.
Predictably, at some point, your body gives up the fight and goes “I’ve done all I can!  Now it’s YOUR problem!”

At which point you are suddenly in A LOT of pain.  Even disabling pain. This is when most people decide that it’s time to go see the doctor. The way inflammation works with your body, it is important to understand that you were actually in a lot of pain before that, but your body just wasn’t telling your conscious brain about it. Localized inflammation is insidious.  It’s constantly present in all the tissue in the area, and the tissue is constantly sending signals to the brain that it is pain.  And the brain responds in the way it thinks is best…..with more tightness and more inflammation.
For the most part, localized inflammation just stays in a specific area, like the forearm/hand, shoulder, neck, feet/ankle, etc.

And the worse the inflammation is, the more chemical gets dumped into the area, and this can begin to spread to neighboring tissue, making that hurt/sore too. There are some important functions of Inflammation, like sending in scar tissue to heal damage and an army of white blood cells to help the immune system fight invaders.

'The Carpal Tunnel Treatment That Works'

This is good.

But inflammation also tells the body that there is pain, and the chemical from inflammation makes you hurt more, and the body responds to this by tightening muscles and increasing the Inflammatory Response. This creates a feedback loop, a Downward Spiral of tightness and pain.
The human body is incredibly amazing in a lot of ways.  Inflammation is not one of them.

And that’s just in one body part.  What happens when you have Systemic Inflammation?  And how does that affect your Immune System?

Joshua Tucker, B.A., C.M.T.

The Tendonitis Expert

www.TendonitisExpert.com