Is Minimally Invasive Surgery an Option for Your Carpal Tunnel?

Hand and wrist pain, tingling, and numbness: these are all telltale symptoms of carpal tunnel syndrome. Also referred to as simply “carpal tunnel,” this nerve-related condition can be uncomfortable to deal with and impact your everyday life.

While carpal tunnel often resolves on its own with conservative treatment methods, in other cases, the condition can progress and cause significant pain and hand mobility issues. This tends to be more common when it goes untreated for too long.

If your carpal tunnel hasn’t responded to first lines of treatment and has instead become more severe, surgery might be the best way forward. But what does surgery for carpal tunnel entail?

At Valley Orthopedic Institute in Palmdale and Ridgecrest, California, our team is led by orthopedic experts Anand Shah, MD, Mehul Taylor, MD, and Adam Amir, DO. In this month’s blog, we’re answering your questions about carpal tunnel surgery, including what it entails and when it’s necessary.

Understanding carpal tunnel

Your median nerve provides feeling to your hand and first three fingers, and it runs right through your carpal tunnel, a passageway of bones and ligaments. Swelling in your wrist or the carpal tunnel itself can put pressure on your median nerve, causing it to lose blood flow and triggering the pain, tingling, and numbness of carpal tunnel syndrome.

Anything that causes your carpal tunnel to irritate or compress your median nerve can lead to carpal tunnel syndrome, but some more commonly seen triggers of this condition include using repetitive wrist motions at work (typing), having poor wrist posture, or having arthritis. 

When you have carpal tunnel, you may have numbness, pain, and tingling that starts in your hand and fingers and then travels up through your wrist and arm. You may also develop hand weakness that makes it difficult to hold onto objects.

Conservative treatment for carpal tunnel

Carpal tunnel always requires treatment to prevent long-term nerve damage. The goal of carpal tunnel treatment is to relieve pressure on your median nerve. In order to do this, conservative treatments for carpal tunnel often include:

• Wearing a splint or brace to limit movement
• Taking nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) to reduce pain and inflammation
• Restricting activities that require the use of your wrist

Steroid injections and physical therapy can also help reduce pain and strengthen your wrist to regain mobility. 

Surgery for carpal tunnel

When carpal tunnel symptoms last for more than six months, don’t respond to conservative treatments, or steadily become more severe, surgery is the best next step. Carpal tunnel surgery is one of the most commonly performed surgeries, and it releases the pressure on your median nerve, providing effective relief. 

This surgery is done endoscopically. During the surgery, a few very small incisions are made to provide access for a camera attached to a thin tube (endoscope). The camera provides the real-time imaging needed to sever some of the carpal tunnel ligaments that are compressing your median nerve.

After surgery, nerve-related symptom relief should be immediate. However, it may take a few months to fully recover from surgery and regain full grip strength.

To learn if minimally invasive surgery for carpal tunnel could be the solution you need for hand and wrist pain, schedule a consultation with our team by calling your nearest office location or using our online booking feature today.