Wrist pain and occasional numbness in hands

by Vibro

Last fall in Sep my left wrist area started hurting and just kept getting worse and worse for about two months. I was laid off and after a month or two it started feeling better. I went back to work 4 and half months later and within a week the pain had started back and continued to get worse for 2 more weeks.

It didn't get quite get as painfull as it had before but I also started having tingling and numbness in my left hand (thumb first two fingers mainly) and to a lesser degree my right wrist started hurting and aching with some tingling and numbness (thumb and first two fingers mainly) in that 3 week period.

I also had my hands going to sleep at night sometimes. I had been using vibratory equiptment off and on although one day I used a viberplate for 10 hours and the pain and ache that night was pretty extreme. So I made a doctors appointment.

I went to the doctor and he said I had tendonitis and that I also might have carpal tunnel syndrome.

He placed me on light duty with no repetitive motions and no lifting more than 20 lBS. I had a nerve conduction test done 5 weeks after my visit to the doctor, which showed my nerves in my hands were fine. I should add that this is after 5 weeks of not doing heavy construction and no vibrations.

So could it be just the tendonitis that caused the tingling and numbness? Or does a negative NCT rule out carpal tunnel syndrome?



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Joshua Answers:

Hi Vibro.

Can Tendonitis cause numbness and tingling?

Yes.

Really though, Wrist Tendonitis and Carpal Tunnel Syndrome are almost identical. Carpal Tunnel Syndrome comes with numbness and tingling though.

Most doctors would have diagnosed you with CTS regardless of the test. Though some let the Nerve Conduction Test be the final arbiter.

Personally, I wouldn't worry about the NCT results, regardless of what they say. Obviously you can have numbness and tingling without a positive NCT test. And you can have a negative NCT and have not numbness or tingling.

So lets move on to why you're having these issues.

First off, see: What Is Tendonitis

Then learn about the Pain Causing Dynamic.

See: Carpal Tunnel and Vitamin B6 Deficiency

That might be a big one for you. Definitely follow the B6.


Repetitive use, manual labor with the hands, standard american diet and lifestyle. Sounds like it's well within a tendonitis dynamic to me. Having said that, there's a variety of factors to take a look at.

Do notice that I said tendonitis 'dynamic'. You have pain and symptoms because of a dynamic, meaning, multiple factors all working together to either have you be in pain or not be in pain.

Maybe you have Carpal Tunnel Syndrome, maybe you have Tendonitis. You definitely DO have a -dynamic- of negative factors winning over the positive factors.


Questions:

1. Do you have a history of injury to the arm/hand/wrist?

2. History of car accident?

3. Any other symptoms?

4. What have you done for self care so far, other than a little Rest? (which doesn't work)




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Joshua Tucker, B.A., C.M.T.
The Tendonitis Expert
www.TendonitisExpert.com