These tips when combined are a highly effective way to deal with wrist pains and many other repetitive stress related injuries. We gathered these tip and give them to you for free because we care about your well being and understand your situation. Put into practice these tips and you will go a long way protecting yourself from carpal tunnel and other repetitive stress related injuries.
1. Try your best to avoid activities requiring excessive up-and-down and side-to-side movements of the wrist as much as possible. Make it a healthy habit to be concerned what force your applying against your wrists and you'll go a long way in preventing or recovering from carpal tunnel syndrome.
2. Make it a habit to take 5-10 mini breaks to stretch and walk around at least every hour when working at the computer.
3. Refrain from doing activities that put direct pressure over the heel of the hand (just below your palm), like push-ups from example. If you do push-ups, try using your fists instead of your palms.
4. Wearing tight watchbands o jewelry and garments with tight elastic sleeves can irritate your wrists, try and wear something lose and more comfortable.
5. Avoid activities requiring forceful repetitive grasping, such as using garden cutters. If you absolutely must use one, use well-cushioned gloves and if possible, tools with padded handles. If you do a lot of work similar to this, it’s best that you purchase some tools that easy to use and have padded grips or handles.
6. Next time your hand feel that burning, sore, tingly or numb sensation, relax some of the tension by massaging in a circular motion starting from the finger tips and continuing all the way down to the base of the palm.
7. Reduce the intensity of muscle tension when your grasping things. Most people hold their pens and pencils unnecessarily hard. Minimize as much as you can the applied force by practicing minimum grip.
8. Avoid activities involving the use of power tools that cause significant vibration.
9. Shake your hands and wrists rapidly to increase comfort and reduce tension.
10. Always consult your doctor if you are experiencing numbness or tingling to accurately determine the cause of such discomfort and rule out a more serious problem.
11. For minor temporary pain relief, briefly soak the area you feel the pain in cold or ice water. Recommended that you only do this if you absolutely have to finish a task.
12. Invest in a high quality jell pad, the smoothness and texture of the pads you chose will have a large influence on the amount of stress will be caused on your wrists.
13. Applying heat to the area you feel the carpal tunnel helps relax the aching muscles and reduces soreness. Find a heating pad or if you don’t have one, find a water bottle and fill it with hot water, then put it on the area.
14. Applying cold to the area you feel the carpal tunnel helps to lessen the swelling and pain. Put an ice pack or let the area run under cold water for a few minutes or let your wrists hover above a ice pack when your typing.
15. Be gentle with your body. After a hard workout or long hours of doing a repetitive task, take a long well deserved rest. If you can’t possibly afford to take a rest, slow down or try working on an easier task.
16. Try using your legs and arms instead of your wrists when your lifting heavy objects, like changing a tire or lifting grocery bags. Your legs alone can easily take on more weight and stress than your arms and wrists combined.
17. Don’t be afraid to ask for help when your moving heavy objects, like lifting furniture around when your cleaning the house.
18. If you have Carpal Tunnel and live with a family, let them know you have it and tell them it’s vital to your health and recovery that they help or try to do all the heavy work around the house. Don’t just shake out the pain and deny that it is there.
19. If you are shopping, take the moment to grab a shopping cart, even if you don’t have that many groceries to buy.
20. Avoid asserting concentrated weight or force on your joints, like carrying things with small thin handles. Instead use a box forcing you to use both hands or find a way to create a bigger handle so you can grip it easier.
21. Meditation and relaxation loosen up stress on your muscles. The more relaxation you provide to your wrists and body, the less inflamed your area will be. Pop in meditation music or pray and take deep slow breaths and visualize yourself in paradise. Your mind is very powerful and research has proven that expectations of yourself and your belief of recovering from problems and diseases influence how fast you will recover.
22. Surgery should be the last resort when you’re thinking up treatments for your CTS. Surgery is risky, can cost an arm and a leg and will keep you from moving your hands at all for weeks if it is successful.
23. If you are overweight, make a commitment to lose weight and improve your blood flow. Exercise daily and eat healthy will go a long way in controlling weight. This can help you prevent carpal tunnel syndrome or help you recover faster from it.
24. If you have a job or hobby that requires you to type a lot, adjust the level of your chair so the keyboard is level with your forearms. This will save you from flexing your wrists when your typing.
25. Avoid sitting or standing in the same position all day, move around or change your position if you must continue working on that task.
26. If your using tools, make sure the handles and grips are not too small or too big. Big handles will mean more weight to stress, too small handles will mean concentrated stress from the weight.
27. If your task requires only one hand, try switching hands now and then giving the other one a good rest even if your not as efficient.
28. Avoid resting your wrists or area that has CTS on hard surfaces for long periods of time. If you have rest your wrists on a surface, make sure you’re using a soft support like a jell pad or pillow.
29. When you’re working on something, try to avoid having your hands too far or too close from your body
30. Use a spare pillow for your wrist when your sleeping. When your sleeping you could unintentionally move your wrists under your body’s weight.
31. Most people have the habit of using one hand when it comes to pouring or holding drinks. Next time your drinking from a bottle, cup or pouring out drinks, practice holding with two hands. Instead of applying all the weight on one wrist, it’s now 2 times lighter and less stressful!
32. When driving 5-speed cars, try using the force of your arm to switch gears instead of your hand and wrist. Better yet, drive an automatic vehicle if you own one.
33. If your painting or drawing, keep your wrist above the surface and let your fingers and arm to the work.
34. Medicine’s like Ibuprofen, Motrin Advil and Tylenol can help provide temporary pain relief.
35. If your using a splint, it is important that you don’t strap it on so tight that it starts to cut off blood circulation. If it feels even more numb when you use a splint then you know its too tight.
36. If your dominant hand is the one with CTS, work on strengthening your other hand with weights, exercises and stretches regularly. Start using this hand whenever you can save yourself from using your dominant one.
37. If your job is being a clerk, you could be at a special risk. The problem with this job is that most of the counters you will be using to type will require you to stand. Unfortunately virtually all of these counter levels are not high enough for proper wrist form. Ask politely your supervisor your concern for CTS and if he can find a way to adjust the desk for not only you but other employees.
38. When your typing on the keyboard of clicking the mouse, make sure that your tapping the keys as lightly as possible and sitting up straight in your chair. There has been cases where people develop a disease separate but similar to CTS in the thumbs because they click too much, too hard or too fast with the mouse.
39. If your use the computer a lot, take the time to learn all the shortcuts keys. Almost any program has them, especially ones created by Microsoft like Word, Excel or PowerPoint. Master the shortcuts and you’ll save yourself a lot of time and stress put on your hands.
40. Never write on a pad or book support in your lap. Your hands are too close to your body and your wrist will likely be bending in a dangerous form. Take the moment to find a good table to write on.
41. When your brushing your teeth, instead of using just the wrists to force the brush against your teeth, tighten your cheeks a little. This will help get the force you want to clean your teeth so you don’t have to grip the brush as tight.
42. When your using the computer, practice keep your feet flat on the ground. This will help you keep your body, shoulders and arms straight and your wrists good distance from the keyboard.
43. Buy a headset for your cell phone and house phone. Most phones today have a speaker phone option, so use it! You are putting stress on your wrist just by simple holding the phone. Taking a break to talk on the phone is also a great way to relax your hands, and keeping in touch with your friends!
44. When your using a chair, it’s best to use one that has long, wide and padded arm supports.
45. Work on big tables with plenty of room. This prevents you from working in cramped areas especially if it’s your office. Most likely you will have a pile of stuff that steals up the space you require to sit, type or work properly.
46. When your on the computer, keep the mouse close to the keyboard. This will stop you from having to stretching across the desk and keep your body and shoulders straight.
47. By simply drinking enough water (8 cups/day) alone, does wonders preventing and recovering from CTS. Having a good water source in your body is critical for your muscles and connective tissues to go back healthy function and condition. A great book I highly recommend to get is “Your Body’s Many Cries For Water” by Dr. F. Batmanghelidg, MD. It will really open your eyes to the importance of water and our bodies.
48. Cut down on your amount of alcohol, coffee and smoking as much as possible. If you have CTS or want to prevent your chances of getting it, simply cut down on unhealthy habits and activities. The amount of alcohol and smoking you do will also effect the speed of your recovery.
49. Make sure your getting plenty of Vitamin E. This helps improve blood circulation & protects blood vessels from being damaged.
50. A good way to see if your wrists are in a healthy posture is by checking if you took a ruler and lined it up from the middle of your fingers to base of your wrists and check if it lines up and continues up your arm.
51. A great way to exercise and strengthen your hand again is to find a good tennis ball and for a few minutes squeeze it in your palm over and over again. After you are done, take a 5 minute break before you start do anything again.
52. If you’re doing regular weight lifting, when your doing tasks with your wrist like curls, or bench press, keep your wrists from folding backwards. This will also give your arm the full workout instead of using the wrist. If you can’t stop your wrist from folding backwards, then try gearing down on the weights onto something lighter and easier.
