Are you struggling with pain in your wrist(s) interfering with everyday tasks like writing, typing, or getting dressed and preparing meals? Unfortunately, wrist pain is a common issue that can impact your function.
Most wrist pain is highly treatable with evidence-based care from one of our physiotherapists at Sports Medicine Experts in Dundas & Ancaster, ON.
Request an appointment today and let one of our skilled therapists assess your wrist, help you find relief, and return to your daily activities without discomfort!
Common causes of wrist pain
We use our hands all the time. This makes them particularly vulnerable to injuries, especially overuse-type injuries. While some injuries are not always avoidable, understanding how to take care of your hands can help prevent some conditions.
Overuse-type injuries to the wrist are most common in groups participating in physically demanding activities like manual laborers and jobs that require computer use or repetitive movements.
The most common cause of traumatic injuries to the wrist is falling onto an outstretched arm. The most common type of injury from falling is a wrist fracture. As with most injuries, the sooner you address them, the sooner you will find relief!
Find your physiotherapist at Sports Medicine Experts in Dundas & Ancaster, ON so they can identify what may have caused the pain to create and what you can do to resolve it.
There are several reasons why your wrist could be bothering you, the most common include the following:
Carpal tunnel syndrome
If you notice your hands, wrists, or forearms ache daily, or that typing and using your hands to hold things have become particularly difficult and uncomfortable for you, you may have carpal tunnel syndrome.
Carpal tunnel syndrome is a condition that can cause tingling and numbness in your fingers or hand. Usually, the symptoms are felt in the thumb and index fingers or middle or ring fingers. For some, the condition will progress, lead to weakness in the hand, and cause people to drop items.
Carpal tunnel is often associated with overuse-type injuries, particularly among construction and manufacturing workers that are required to lift, grip, and perform forceful wrist motions. Or certain sports like golfing, tennis/pickleball, and rock climbing.
Your carpal tunnel is a narrow channel, about the width of your thumb, located on your wrist under the palm. It protects the median nerve, as well as the tendons you use to bend your fingers. When excessive pressure is put on the median nerve, it causes crowding and irritation of the carpal tunnel, making it difficult for it to do its job.
Carpal tunnel syndrome causes painful stinging sensations with arm, hand, or wrist movement. The pain typically radiates through the fingers, hands, wrists, or forearms. This condition can develop from overuse of the wrist and regular, repetitive motions, such as typing or writing.
Arthritis
There are many kinds of arthritis, however, one thing that most cases of arthritis have in common is that they cause a person to experience mild to severe pain in their joints, muscles, ligaments, and tendons.
Arthritis pain is also directly linked to the limitation of mobility in these areas. This condition can affect anyone at any age, but is very commonly found in the hands of aging adults, and can cause swelling, stiffness, weakness, and inflammation that makes it difficult to grasp items or comfortably move the hands, wrists, and fingers.
The hand is susceptible to traumatic injuries as well as repetitive stress injuries. A thorough evaluation is the first step in identifying the nature of your injury and then creating a successful treatment program for you.
How can Sports Medicine Experts physiotherapy help me find relief?
If you’re living with wrist pain while recovering from an injury, a physiotherapist can help you to regain and maintain your function. Physiotherapists provide safe and effective methods to help treat pain in your wrist joints.
Your Dundas & Ancaster, ON therapist can help you identify the best treatment methods for your specific needs and design an individualized treatment plan accordingly. They can also help determine the best manual therapy techniques and mobility and strength-building exercises to reduce your pain, restore your function and reduce the likelihood of developing it again.
Physiotherapy aims to help you return to everyday work, home, and sports activities, free of pain in your wrists and hands. A physiotherapist that specializes in hand therapy can help identify what actions might be aggravating your symptoms and will discuss any modifications you may need to make.
We take a holistic approach to our programs. This means we address the entire upper extremity when dealing with wrist conditions. This often includes stretching and strengthening the neck, shoulder, elbow, and hand in our treatment programs. It is also common to use splinting, bracing, and modalities (i.e., heat, ice, laser, iontophoresis, or ultrasound) to alleviate pain and ensure you achieve the best possible outcome.
If you feel uncomfortable with an exercise or feel like you don’t know where your progress is in treatment, feel free to communicate this with your therapist. Our goal is to help you feel your best in the shortest time possible.
Request an appointment in Dundas & Ancaster, ON today
Call Sports Medicine Experts in Dundas & Ancaster, ON today to schedule an appointment and let our skilled experts guide you back to health. We’re here to help you every step of the way!