Carpal Tunnel Question:

“Can carpal tunnel syndrome cause anxiety and depression?”

Gloria
Secaucus, New Jersey

Answers By Doctors at First Hand Medical:

Great question, Thank you for reaching out Gloria. There are several factors common to Carpal Tunnel Syndrome that often lead to feelings of hopelessness, anxiety, irritability and even depression.

People with Carpal Tunnel often find they have trouble sleeping and also have trouble performing at their typical high level at work.   These two factors often combine with each other creating a perfect storm of Carpal Tunnel despair.

People who have their sleep interrupted routinely on a chronic basis have trouble getting enough REM sleep.   It takes most people a couple of hours of rest before they go into REM Sleep. So, if your sleep is interrupted every few hours, it can be difficult to get enough REM Sleep.

Overtime, a person suffering with routine interrupted sleep from any cause becomes deficient in REM sleep. They become irritable, moody and cannot think clearly.   Their judgement and decision making process can become marginal.

If left untreated it can even lead to mental illness. The persons mood and irritability begins to affect important relationships with family members, colleagues and supervisors at work, and friends.   When important relationships are damaged, then a host of other stress factors come into play aggravating the mental state of the person even further.

Chronic pain and suffering leads to depression for anyone with any kind of constant painful condition.   Carpal Tunnel Syndrome is no exception. Dealing every day with the same nagging pain and numbness drives people up a wall.   Some say they feel like cutting off their hands, it bothers them so much.

Not being able to work as fast and effectively as you are accustom to working can lead to a lack of self-esteem. Also, people with Carpal Tunnel often drop things unexpectedly. They lose their grip strength.   The loss of feeling in the fingers and hands slows the speed at which a person can work and can create safety issues and a high rate of errors in your work.

All of these factors, starts self-doubt and creates doubt in other people’s minds about your abilities to contribute at work. If you are self-employed it can be even worse. You may not be able to maintain your business at a sufficient level to sustain the business.

Another factor that can slow the right treatment is that Carpal Tunnel Syndrome is often misdiagnosed because the symptoms will show up in the arm or shoulder or forearm or even the neck.   A mis-diagnosis slows the process of getting the right treatment and prolongs the suffering and despair.

If you have one of the symptoms listed on this website, you have a 65% chance of having CTS. If you have 2 of those symptoms it is over 85% chance of having CTS. Three or more of the symptoms listed on this website is a 95% change of having CTS. So, don’t be confused by the where the symptoms present themselves.   Use this site as a guide to help you self-diagnosis before you see a doctor. Then you can go forward with confidence.

Carpal Tunnel Syndrome is a chronic condition that doesn’t just go away on its own without sound Carpal Tunnel Treatment with proven therapies developed by Doctors.

There are a lot of treatment options around that do not help the patient to recover from CTS.   Rigid Hand Braces and Wrist Splints are classic examples of treatment ideas that sometimes help a little in the beginning, but always lead to a worse state with this chronic syndrome in the long run. Sometimes it almost seems like a “bate and switch scheme”.

So trying a lot of treatment regimens that don’t work burns up time and wastes money – all the while the patient’s condition is worsening.   The level of frustration and anxiety rises with every failed treatment attempt.

Another factor that can lead to hopelessness is that Carpal Tunnel Syndrome is a condition the returns even after a “successful Carpal Tunnel Surgery”. Surgery is only considered successful by patients about 50 – 60% of the time.   Most people go into hand surgery for Carpal Tunnel with the expectation that it is a permanent fix.   It can be extremely aggravating to go through the downtime, lost wages, painful hand rehabilitation and expense – not to mention the exposure to risks and complications that accompanies any surgical procedure – just to have CTS come back in a relatively short time.   Carpal Tunnel Syndrome comes back over 80% of the time after Carpal Tunnel Surgery. There is no real permanent fix for Carpal Tunnel for most people.

A third Carpal Tunnel treatment often recommended by traditional medical providers is Steroid Injections.   Here again, Steroid Injections seem like a quick and easy treatment regimen. However, these injections only   work for 50 – 60% of people, but the benefits only last for a few months.   Medical Text Books suggest that a person should not get more than 2 Carpal Tunnel Treatments. So, here again the symptoms only come back after a rather expense injection.

When you take all of these factors together, they combine for a torturous path of frustration, sleep loss, despair, pain and seemingly hopelessness.   The mental stress and anxiety can reach extreme levels.

There is hope and a Carpal Tunnel Treatment that is relative inexpensive, works for 97% of people, and can be easily repeated when Carpal Tunnel returns and does not have any risks complications nor downtime associated with it.   The Carpal Solution Therapy was developed by Doctors to help people suffering with CTS with an simple easy to use treatment that can be done in the comfort and convenience of home during sleep.

The Carpal Solution Therapy restores restful sleep and eliminates hand pain, wrist pain, forearm pain and shoulder or neck pain. There is no reason to go on suffering and trying treatment that don’t work or that have lots of risks and down time and expense.   The Carpal Solution is what Neurologists call the best first line treatment for Carpal Tunnel Syndrome, because it has such a high success rate and because the cost are so low with no downtime and no risks.   That is the perfect treatment for a condition that comes back for the majority of people even after surgery.

So, be proactive and take back the control of your life with the Carpal Solution Therapy. Don’t allow yourself to go on suffering in a downward spiral of depressing circumstances. Exercise your faith and take hope and get started today towards a better live with none of the negatives of Carpal Tunnel Symptoms. We can help You!