Ouch! My hand hurts!

[Linda Nelson]

O.K. So I turn 40 next week, and I guess it's time to start feeling older than 18.

From all the typing and painting I've been doing lately, I find my right hand hurts, like a carpal tunnel small pain in the back of my right hand. Does anyone else experience this? It's happened before, and with a little rest, goes away. Nonetheless, thinking about the ramifications to a future chronic problem makes me worry.

Does anyone have a regimen/excercise they do to prevent future hand problems?

I don't want to be an alarmist, but I also don't want to have problems in 15 years if I could have avoided it by just doing smart measures now.

Thanks all for your insights -

Linda "blue hair" Nelson

Hi Linda,

I had to stop doing my stippling because of carpal tunnel syndrome. My hand, wrist and up my arm received the years of constant repetition. I am also a graphic designer so the mouse didn't do much good either.

I trained my left hand to work the mouse (didn't take long) so that I took some stress off my right hand. I gave up the stippling because of the constant repetitive work it involved. I did, however, make sure I took more breaks from the computer, stretched my fingers out for about 10 seconds and then relaxed them. This was a great exercise.

Also, I placed a warm heating pad around my wrist at night for about 20 minutes. And above all this, I wore a wrist splint as much as possible to keep it from working any more than it had to. This all helped significantly. By the way, you can buy the splints for carpal tunnel at your local pharmacy. Hope this helps.

[Linda Nelson]

Thanks Melissa!

I've just moved my mouse to the left hand, and I'll be stopping by the pharmacy this weekend!

Thanks again!
Linda

[Jean Kelly]

Hi Linda, when my hands hurt I massage my neck muscles, and do some neck rolls. Sometimes painting, typing, computer etc causes me to sit with my head forward and thoracic region of my spine curved forward. This creates hand pain for me, I need to watch my posture better.

Jean

[Mari DeRuntz]

Yoga helps. Strength, balance, flexibility.

[Tom Edgerton]

Me too, darn it!

These have worked for me:

1) My wife is an (extremely talented) public relations specialist, but as a result, types and mouses all day. She has a tendency toward carpal tunnel, as I do. An orthopedist showed her some simple stretching exercises for wrists and hands that we do as we watch the tube. (Might be worth a consult with your local practitioner, too.)

Briefly, they go as follows:

(In all of these positions, your forearms are parallel to the floor. Hold all of these for a count of ten to fifteen.)

a) Stretch out your hands and fingers as straight as possible, at a right angle to your forearms and pointing up. Try to fold the backs of your hands to your forearms (you can't really, but that's the direction of the stretch).

b) From position "a", turn your hands and fingers down so they point straight out in line with your forearms, palms to the floor. Splay out your fingers and palms to get a good stretch.

c) From position "b", make fists, and squeeze. Backs of your hands are toward the ceiling.

d) From position "c", bend/fold the fists (your knuckles) down toward the floor.(Imagine trying to touch the underside of your wrists with your nails.) This will stretch the backs of your hands and wrists, and the tops of the forearms.

Repeat as desired. These feel really good.

2) I find that when I do general weight work at the gym, it helps with this also.

3) I have a massage therapist that I see 3-4 times a year, who does deep muscle work on my shoulders, arms, wrists, and fingers. She's worth her weight in gold.

4) My massage person had me apply castor oil (!) to my forearms and wrists and wrap them in plastic wrap when I sleep (castor oil is gooey). The wrap helps generate heat, too. Really helps take the ache out when things get bad. It ain't sexy (!), but it works.

5) Dean Paules, the renowned portraitist, has a chronic problem with bursitis and tendonitis in his shoulder and arm. He's a former engineer, and attacked it by rigging a counter-weighted sling to hold his painting arm in a neutral balance. Says it's helped immensely. It's a radical solution, but hey...

Anyone else have a fix?

[Denise Hall]

Linda,

I broke/dislocated my middle finger on my dominant hand in February. I have not painted for more than 5 minutes at a time since then. I'm in hand therapy 3 times a week with a certified hand therapist. I'm surrounded by people with carpal tunnel problems and they are all doing the same routine hand exercises that I am. If you would like to email me I will try to tell you more about it. I recommend going to the doctor now and getting some help. You could end up with surgery and longer recovery (up to a year like me) if you don't address the problem now.

Good luck,

Denise

[Holly Snyder]

It's a little depressing to see how common this problem seems to be. I too have pains in the back of my hand from mousing and tennis elbow from a hard game a couple years ago. They're both connected and overdoing one hurts the other. I sometimes use the mouse with my left hand when it gets too bad. Recently, however, we bought an ergonomic mouse, the Microsoft Wireless IntelliMouse Explorer. It helps because you can rest you can rest your index and middle finger and still push the buttons, rather than having to lift (and stress) them to push the buttons. It's only for right handed use though.

I also have noticed that general resistance workouts seems to help. Also it feels great to have my husband give me a hand rub - it's better than a back rub! Jean, I'll try your suggestions as I also have bad posture. I've tried various herbal remedies, both pills and lotions, which haven't seemed to help. I'm in the process of setting up an appt. with a therapist to learn exercises for my elbow and hand, and reduce my most recent elbow inflammation. Perhaps I could also compare notes with you, Denise, after that?

Holly

[Leslie Ficcaglia]

I developed intermittent carpal tunnel syndrome in my twenties and was able to keep it at bay for many years through taking additional B 6 (along with a balanced B complex vitamin). My dad, a physician who always scoffed at my use of dietary supplements, reported excitedly to me a couple of years ago that his doctor had recommended B 6 for my father's carpal tunnel syndrome and it seemed to work. I told him I'd been taking it for years. However, recently that hasn't been enough, and especially after I've done a lot of mousing my hand gets painful. Using a splint at night when needed took care of the numbness I was experiencing, and really made a big difference, but right now I'm wearing a splint for most other things, probably because of too much computer time. That seems to cause pain rather than numbness, neither of which is much fun.

I'm going to copy out those exercises, Tom, and try them. They seem similar but more thorough than some that a spinner at a craft show taught me when I told her why I gave up spinning.

[Linda Nelson]

What a wealth of information - even more than what I could find on "carpal tunnel" sites!

One thing that strikes me after reading this thread and refecting on my own case, I think the "needle that's breaking the camel's back" is the computer mouse. When I think of painting, certainly it can be repetive, but I don't consider that much so, as we are always changing motions by cleaning our brush, mixing paints stopping to look at the work/subject. Using the computer however is extremely repetitive, and that is taking our stressed-out hand to past the limit.

I don't know if this has any basis, but at least I know that out of things I perform, using the mouse is certainly one task I could perfom with the other hand. It certainly can't hurt.

Linda