During the pandemic, many people worked remotely. While it was probably great for their mental health, I have noticed that some of my clients have developed new physical complaints due to their computer usage.
If you didn’t have an ergonomic setup for your work space at home, you probably worked on a couch or a porch. It might have been fun working this way at first, but many of you probably felt that it was quite uncomfortable after a while.
I also know that some people doubled or tripled their workload to pick up the slack for the people who pretended to work at home. Even with a perfect ergonomic setup, it is too much time to spend in front of a keyboard. I don’t think our hands and arms are designed to do that.
Among the myriad of keyboard-related injuries such as neck pain or arm pain, I would like to focus on carpal tunnel syndrome in this article. The signs of carpal tunnel syndrome are numbness, tingling, and pain in the forearm and the hand, primarily in the thumb, index finger, and middle finger.
Carpal tunnel syndrome is basically the compression of the median nerve, caused by the narrowing of the small space called the carpal tunnel that the median nerve goes through. During my acupuncture training in school, one of my teachers told us that the problem in the wrist was never just in the wrist.
Since the median nerve originates in the neck and travels down the front of the shoulder, arm, forearm and to the hands, any inflammation and swelling of the muscles, tendons, ligament, joints, and the surrounding tissues on the path will compress on the nerve.
The inflammation can be from overuse and repetitive movement of the fingers as well as unnatural positioning of the forearm, shoulders, and neck. It also could be due to other underlying medical conditions.
Acupuncture works well in reducing the inflammation of the said structures that are involved in carpal tunnel syndrome by releasing the muscular tension and improving the blood flow to the affected areas.
*Individual results may vary.
Shinichi Moriyama Acupuncture
3939 NE Hancock St., Ste. 217
Portland, OR 97212
503-419-8025
