Q: Which part of the body suffers from being associated with computers?
I thought I heard the answer, neck! The waist! But beyond that? Look down at your wrist, and see if the skin on the palm of your wrist is getting darker, harder, thicker, and longer. If so, “Congratulations,” you probably won the lottery. Check oneself next, press still ache ache? At ordinary times do you feel finger, palm a little numbness acid bilges?
If all of these are true, you must pay attention to them, or you may develop stiff hand movements and reduced coordination. As a result, you feel uncomfortable with the steering wheel when driving, uncomfortable with grocery shopping and carrying things, and even at night when you sleep, your hands feel as if they are running electricity and crisp and numb.
If this happens, you may be sorry to inform you that you may be suffering from an unheard of disease called “mousehand”.
The so-called “mouse hand”, the medical term is called carpal tunnel syndrome, is the median nerve compression in the carpal tunnel caused by finger sensation and dysfunction, is a very common peripheral nerve compression disease.
Is there a kind of Chinese characters, put together do not know the feeling?
In fact, the carpal tunnel is a tunnel with the median nerve in the middle, and if the tunnel gets narrower, the median nerve is bound to get squeezed, and if the nerve gets squeezed, you’re bound to have symptoms. But why does a good tunnel narrow?
This can be due to a number of causes, such as synovial hyperplasia, fibrosis, trauma, or degenerative changes in the carpal tunnel leading to bone hyperplasia or abnormalities.
But at present, there is another possible reason is the prolonged excessive use of fingers and wrists, such as coding farmers typing or using a mouse in front of a computer, resulting in increased pressure in the carpal tunnel, which may also be the main reason for the soaring incidence of carpal tunnel syndrome in recent years.
Ask: doctor, that I later don’t need a mouse not to be able to get a mouse hand?
A: NoNoNo! That’s not true.
Carpal tunnel syndrome is not only targeted by people who use a mouse, but also by working people who use their wrists too much. Teachers, drivers, cooks, tailors… These long-term finger wrist flexion and extension movement may cause wrist soft tissue strain, local tissue hyperplasia, edema, and then compression of the median nerve.
In addition to the above these “occupational disease”, any can cause carpal tunnel narrow or wrist tube volume larger factors (wrist canal neoplasm, wrist transverse ligament hypertrophy, radial bottom after registration, and accompanied by a kind of rheumatism, diabetes, or changes in estrogen levels during pregnancy and lactation, such as tissue edema), can lead to wrist tube compression of median nerve, pressure increases in the carpal tunnel syndrome.
Ask: hear cervical vertebra disease also can hand hemp, that I after all is how return a responsibility?
A: Yes, both radiculopathy and carpal tunnel syndrome cause hand numbness, and because the upper stream of the median nerve, the peripheral nerve, also originates from the root of the cervical spine, it is clinically confusing. However, it is not impossible to identify, just need a professional doctor. Now tell us the secret!
To identify these two diseases, we should start from the following aspects:
- First, gently tap the lateral carpal tunnel of the affected hand with the other hand. If the finger has a discharge feeling, which is clinically called Tinel’s positive sign, carpal tunnel syndrome may be relatively large.
Tinel sign test
- Extreme flexion of the wrist in 60s with increased regional numbness as shown in the figure below (positive for extreme carpal tunnel flexion test) was considered as carpal tunnel syndrome.
- Carpal tunnel syndrome presses on the median nerve in the carpal tunnel. The sensory areas innervated by this nerve include the thumb, food, the middle finger and the ring finger on the side close to the middle finger.
Of course, these are all physical examination methods, carpal tunnel syndrome diagnosis is the most important clinical test. Electromyography is an important tool, which can tell where a nerve is going wrong. Moreover, in emG examination, the latency of distal median nerve of carpal tunnel syndrome was prolonged, which suggested the possibility of median nerve compression. In addition, mri of cervical vertebra can also be very intuitive to see whether there is radiculotype cervical spondylosis, to identify.
After clear diagnosis joins carpal tunnel syndrome unfortunate camp, how should do?
For patients with early carpal tunnel syndrome who have no symptoms such as muscle weakness and muscle atrophy, wrist splint or anchorage fixation is a good choice and the most common conservative treatment. After the wrist is fixed and the brake is maintained, the pressure in the carpal tunnel can be reduced and the symptoms can be alleviated by reducing its movement.
But you don’t want to fix it in any way. You want to fix the wrist in a neutral position, because the median nerve is the least compressed and works best. Fixed therapy can be carried out throughout the day or at night, both of which have good short-term effects on relieving symptoms and improving hand function, far higher than the rate of spontaneous remission.
If the splint still does not relieve pain, glucocorticoid injection, often referred to as “blocking”, may be considered.
The procedure is controversial, however, because while it can significantly relieve symptoms, the medium – to long-term results have been less than ideal. Carpal tunnel injection may damage median nerve, which needs to be dealt with by experienced doctors.
The surgical treatment
Patients with carpal tunnel syndrome whose symptoms cannot be alleviated after 2 to 7 weeks of conservative treatment or who have developed muscle atrophy and whose numbness is unbearable may be considered for surgical treatment. The objective of any surgical procedure is to relieve the compression of the median nerve. The success rate of surgical treatment is generally significantly higher than that of conservative treatment. Surgical treatment is carpal tunnel decompression, mainly including carpal tunnel incision decompression and endoscopic carpal tunnel decompression.
Carpal tunnel decompression has been widely used in the treatment of various carpal tunnel syndromes due to its advantages of simple operation, safety and low incidence of postoperative complications. This method was used to decompress thoroughly, not only cutting the transverse carpal ligament inside the carpal canal, but also cutting the covering tissue between the skin and the median nerve, and routinely performing epidural decompression. However, the incision was larger and the recovery time of hand function was longer.
Endoscopic carpal tunnel decompression is a relatively new surgical method, which has the advantages of less trauma and better appearance. The transverse carpal ligament in the carpal canal was also cut off, but the superficial fascia and adipose tissue were retained, which could accelerate the recovery of postoperative grip strength and restore the work earlier. However, there may be complications such as incomplete ligament release, vascular injury, poor postoperative symptom improvement or recurrence.
Whatever the procedure, there are some complications, but in fact, the procedure is relatively mature and there is no need to worry too much about it.
On cure not the disease, we still come to see how to prevent carpal tunnel syndrome
- First of all, to correct bad work habits, computer nerds should pay attention to the keyboard typing posture, the correct position of the mouse and computer keyboard, choose a more suitable hand shape of the mouse.
- When using the computer, put your forearm on the table and keep your wrist dangling or cushioned can better maintain the neutral state of your wrist and reduce the pressure on your wrist.
- Choose appropriate pads for mouse and keyboard, which can reduce the fatigue of hands. People at high risk of occupational diseases should avoid working for long hours and should stop to exercise their wrists for 10 minutes after 1 to 2 hours of work.
- Doing little hand movements to relax your hands, doing finger exercises and shaking your hands moderately can increase blood flow to your hands.
- Warm your hands with hot water or a towel every night to promote blood circulation and relieve fatigue.
- Cyclists should complete the stretching exercise of their hands and wrists before riding, and adjust their hand posture to reduce the pressure on their hands and wrists for a long time.
Prevent “mousehands”
Start small in your daily life.
I hope everyone has a pair of healthy and beautiful hands.
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