Many people experience wrist pain, carpal tunnel syndrome or simply achy forearms. The modern world sees us typing, clicking with our phones or gripping excessively. Our hands have never worked harder than they do today. The inevitable result is that our wrists, fingers and forearms are overworked. So what can we do to treat wrist pain ourselves.
What causes wrist pain?
Wrist pain is actually rarely caused by the wrist itself. The wrist sits above the fingers and below the shoulder. The muscles of the fingers run through the wrist area and attach onto the elbow. So overworking fingers, from too much typing and texting or if your job involves cutting, such as hairdressers and barbers can lead to wrist and forearm pain.
However, the shoulder also affects the muscles of the forearm. A rounded shoulder, from again, too much typing, cutting or just sitting and texting can create tightness on the whole bio-mechanical line from the shoulder to the fingers.
Gina used to work with elite level Judo players. Judo players need strong wrists and fingers as their short involves a lot of gripping. When a player would come saying they had no grip strength, Gina would start by releasing the front of the shoulder. By allowing the shoulder to sit in a better position, the whole of the arm line would release, thereby giving the player back their grip strength and removing their wrist pain.
How can I treat my wrist pain?
The first place to start is by releasing the muscles of the forearm. This is done by grabbing a tennis or golf ball and rolling it up and down the forearm. If you find an area that is tight, press and hold the position for a while, with the ball, until the pain drops. This will release the forearm muscles and may solve the problem.
If it doesn’t, it is time to look at the next joint, the shoulder joint. Stretch out the front of the shoulders. These muscles are known as the pec muscles, use a doorframe to stretch these out. This will help to release the front of the shoulder, enabling the shoulder to sit in the correct position. Again this may resolve the wrist pain issue.
Is my wrist pain Carpal Tunnel?
Many people immediately jump to carpal tunnel when they get wrist pain. Take a look at our other articles on this area. But often, even what is thought to be carpal tunnel is actually an issue stemming from the neck or shoulder. Carpal tunnel is categorised as the hand going numb especially in the evening, waking you while you sleep. But even then, treating the neck and shoulder often gets better results than surgery on the carpal tunnel. Take a look at this article.
Should I be strengthening my wrist?
More often than not the hand and wrist are too tight, but that tightness comes from somewhere and if you have a very hand heavy job, it maybe that you are not strong enough for the work you are asking your hand to do. If loosening the forearm and hand alone don’t fix the issue, then strengthening is the next place to go.
Strengthening the hand and wrist can be done with elastic bands, squeezy balls etc, but remembering the link with the forearm and shoulder, some strengthening work may need to be done on these areas as well.
If loosening the arm and shoulder haven’t worked, it may be time to book in for an assessment so we can work out exactly which muscles need to be strengthened to get a long term solution to your wrist pain issues.
To find out more information on wrist pain take a look at this NHS page
