Just my two cents.  I have CT, and about a year ago, it got significantly worse.  I had been in a minor car accident, rear ended, and received a bulged disc in my neck, C5 or C7, somewhere in that area.  I had physical therapy for 3 months, neck feels good now.  But the hands just got worse and worse.  I had CT in my right hand, but the left hand started now as well.  

I was almost - ALMOST - to the point of having the surgery, but my orthopedic said I would probably get 60% use of my hands back.  I am a church organist, 60% just ain't good enough.  As a last resort, I began to see an excellent massage therapist in November, about a year after the accident.  I have been going once a week for an hour massage.  She works from my head down through my back and chest muscles, shoulders, arms and hands.  She is an angel from heaven.  She is one tough lady, working those muscles thoroughly.  Not one of these touchy-feely massages, for sure!  My CT is now almost back to pre-accident status.

All 10 fingertips were getting numb, absolutely no feeling whatsoever day and night, and there was a lot of stiffness and pain in my hands, and the night tingling was almost unbearable.  I could not grip anything, showering was agony to wring out the washcloth, and going to the bathroom during the night was not a fun experience because I could not even hold the wad of toilet paper, that's how stiff and painful my hands were.  How many nights I spent sleeping sitting up in my lounge chair because the pain and numbness and tingling was so bad laying down.  All of these problems are gone now, GONE!  I still have some pain in my hands, and some stiffness, but on a scale of 1-10, with 10 being the worst time, I would say that I am back to a 3-4 now.

I would heartily recommend massage before you do the surgery, and it won't happen overnight, it's taken 8 months to accomplish the recovery I have had.  My massage therapist also recommended accupuncture, but there is just so much I can do financially.  Try alternative therapies before the surgery.  My massage therapist is a firm believer that CT starts in the back, shoulder and neck areas, where all the nerves come together and intertwine.  And I am living proof that working those areas helped tremendously.  She also maintains that most people with CT have been in a car accident, no matter if it was a minor one, and the neck area was aggravated, causing the CT to worsen.

I always swore that I would never have the surgery, and massage has made me glad that I did not cave in to pressure from my doctor and go the surgery route.

Janet


on 7/5/03 3:47 PM, R SI at rsigroup@... wrote:

CTS surgery is only 25% successful because the problem is often not actually in the carpal tunnel. You may one of those cases where the problem is actually in the neck and shoulders where tension is compressing a nerve and causing distal symptoms in the fingers/hand.

Are you tense? Are you stressed? Do you have good ergonomics? take breaks? dring water? deep breathe? good posture?

see www.conquerrsi.com <http://www.conquerrsi.com>  for some very interesting information about repetitive stress injury.....I'm not associated with the site, I just found it incredibly helpful to me.

>From: "Robin Nobles"
>Reply-To: repetitivestrain@yahoogroups.com
>To: repetitivestrain@yahoogroups.com
>Subject: [repetitivestrain] Anyone have experience with carpal tunnel surgery??
>Date: Thu, 03 Jul 2003 21:39:39 -0000
>
>
>Hello,
>
>I had carpal tunnel surgery 4 weeks ago. My doctor told me that I'd
>have 70-80% use of my hand back in 4 weeks. I **guess** I do, but it
>actually hurts worse than it did before surgery. The numbness,
>tingling, pain, etc., is even worse.
>
>To make matters even worse, I'm a writer -- and I'm on this computer
>day in/day out. I tried to type with one finger for a while, then
>when it started hurting too much, to leave and rest my hand.
>
>But, my doctor said it's not necessary to do that any more. He said
>that my typing won't damage what he's done to try to correct the
>problem.
>
>My doctor said that it may take 9-12 MONTHS to see the full benefits
>of the surgery. SCREAM. I wondered if because I waited a long time
>for the surgery if maybe I'd damaged the nerve. He said that's a
>possibility, and my hand may not get any better than it is now. But,
>we won't know for a while. BE PATIENT. Geez. He also said that the
>longer you wait to have surgery, the longer it sometimes takes to
>recover.
>
>Has anyone else had carpal tunnel surgery? I didn't have the scope-
>type surgery -- just the standard CT surgery.
>
>What type of recovery did you experience? How long did it take before
>the pain, numbness, etc., went away?
>
>Because using my hands are my job, and because I have no other
>alterative but to use my hands, this is so frustrating! I'm going to
>check into voice recognition software, which may help me to a certain
>extent.
>
>Thanks for ANY advice you can give me.
>
>Robin
>
>
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