Exercises to Treat Carpal Tunnel Syndrome

Edward was a software engineer and he used to have extremely long durations of work at the office, on computer. One day, after he reached office and tried to work, he just could not. He felt a strange sense of tingling, pain and numbness in his hand. It was absolutely excruciating and it was such that poor Edward could not do anything. He finally went to the doctor and it was inferred from the pain in his wrist, that he has carpal tunnel syndrome. Thankfully his ailment had not reached a chronic stage. So the doctor gave him some pain killers and some anti-inflammatory pills. Most importantly, he advised Edward to go through a set of exercises.

What are these exercises for carpal tunnel syndrome? Let's learn a few of them.

Exercises for Carpal Tunnel Syndrome Treatment

Median Nerve Gliding Exercises
To do median nerve gliding exercises, you need to move your thumb across 6 positions. And during all that time the wrist will be in a stationary position. For this exercise, here is what you can do. First make a fist and ensure that your wrist is in a neutral position. Then get your fingers and thumb straightened. Next bend back your wrist while moving the thumb away from your palm. Follow it up by turning your wrist palm up. Now use the other hand and pull your thumb gently further away from your palm. Make sure you hold each of the positions for minimum 7 seconds and repeat the process 3 to 5 times in a day.

Fist Flexion Exercises
These are also known as tendon gliding exercises. In the median nerve gliding exercise, the thumb was at the epicenter. Here, the fingers are to be moved through 5 positions while the wrist remains in a neutral position. Now keep your fingers straight to start off. Now make hook fist and then go back to the straight hand position. Next form a straight fist and return to a straight hand. The last position is a full fist and then back to straight hand. Again, like the median nerve gliding exercises, hold each position for minimum 7 seconds and repeat it maximum 5 times a day.

Other Carpal Tunnel Exercises
Apart from these two, there are some more exercises to get relief from carpal tunnel syndrome. To illustrate one, after you have typed continuously, for some time, make a tight fist and hold it. Follow that with fanning the fingers and let that be for a few seconds.

Amongst other, you could also stretch shoulder and neck muscles. In a standing position, put your left hand on the top of your right shoulder. Now tip your head to the left and hold for a second. Keep your head as it is, looking ahead and be in that position for 5 seconds. Repeat this on the other side as well. In this regard, shrugging your shoulders can also prove to give relief. Then there are types of squeezes which are good for wrist. For that, take a soft ball and squeeze it. Do 3 sets of 10 repetitions. Begin with full fist, general squeezes and then advance to squeezes with one finger and thumb at a time. Do three sets of 10 with these also.

Along with this, you can grip a light hand weight weighing about two pounds. For this also, you will have to 3 sets of 10 repetitions. Then turn your hand over on the palm side and then again to the dorsal side.

Well, that was about it. Apart from these exercises, the best way to deal with carpal tunnel is to rest the wrist and give it an ice treatment.